The Commodore's Daughter
by Nawyn
Summary: [COMPLETE] With her father falsely accused of a crime that will court-martial him, Commodore Norrington's daughter Anna sets out to save his honor and his job - but with a little unwanted help from our favorite pirates...
1. The Commodore's News

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter One  
  
Bright blue eyes narrowed, Anna Norrington raised herself to tiptoes and scanned the tiny dots at the harbor that were men unloading a ship. Crates of various imports were hauled off the deck by crew members, and a red-clad marine handed down the occasional passenger. Anna could just make out the word "Mercury" painted in bold yellow letters on the hull - the ship's name. She leaned farther out. Somewhere among the mass of humanity surrounding the Mercury's landed side, was her father.  
  
"He's been away for a year this time!" complained a light female voice next to Anna. Turning, she raised her eyebrows at her older sister. Elizabeth straightened her hat and veil, which she always wore outside to protect herself from the sun, and sighed dramatically. "Anna, why on earth do you want to wait out here for Father? He's going to come home. You can see him then."  
  
Anna did not answer. Elizabeth had never really understood Anna's bond with their father, having been much closer to their mother, and as a consequence Elizabeth did not understand Anna's need to be the first to see Commodore Norrington as he left his ship. Ignoring Elizabeth's huff of annoyance at her silence, Anna took a few steps forward and squinted her eyes. "Anna, don't squint, it puts wrinkles in your face," her sister cautioned automatically.  
  
"You sound like Mama," Anna teased, making Elizabeth frown before she remembered her own warning and smoothed her face. "And I can't see a thing from here! I'm going down to the dock."  
  
"Are you insane?" Elizabeth cried, scandalized. "I'm certainly not going down there! And you can't go without a chaperone. You're sixteen, Anna - try to have some propriety! Anna!" But Anna had already scooped up her encumbering skirts and was picking her way down the bluff to the dock. Elizabeth sighed heavily and made for the more roundabout and safer way down.  
  
Slipping and sliding on the bluff, Anna arrived at the dock. A few of the crew members knew her - they nodded quickly and said, "Morning, Miss Anna," as they unloaded cargo. When Anna caught sight of Gillette, the captain of the Mercury, she plucked his sleeve and asked, "Where's my father?"  
  
Gillette was not a man given to displays of emotion, but something flickered across his face as he recognized Anna. "He's probably just disembarking, Miss Norrington," he said. Anna had the impression that he was telling her this reluctantly. "You might want to wait before you see him."  
  
"Is something wrong?" she asked, staring at Gillette. He was a man who had been her father's first lieutenant ever since he had been made captain himself. If anyone could tell her honestly if there was aught amiss with her father, it would be Gillette.  
  
The captain's pause before he spoke told Anna all she needed to know. But his words made her feel even worse. "Aye, there is. Miss Norrington, it's not just any ordinary bad thing, either. If I might give you some advice, it would be this: do not rush in on your father."  
  
Anna's instincts were warring with each other. On the one hand, Gillette would know best. But on the other hand, she was his daughter and favorite child - who could comfort Norrington better than she? And if the news was as bad as Gillette was hinting, he would need comfort. She made up her mind. "Thank you for the advice, captain," Anna said quietly, releasing Gillette's sleeve and turning to fight her way through the crowd to the gangplank.  
  
Gillette watched his commodore's daughter go, sighing. He hadn't really expected her to heed his advice, but at least he had given it. Settling his hat on his head, Gillette walked away from the Mercury, thinking that if ever there was a man with bad luck in the prime of his career, it was Commodore Norrington.  
  
***  
  
Gillette had been wrong. Norrington was sitting in his cabin, at his table, a thick sheet of parchment in his hand, when Anna entered quietly. Closing the door behind her to alert him to her presence, she moved next to him and asked, "Father? What's wrong?"  
  
Norrington looked up, startled to hear Anna's voice. Even with the news he had received, the sight of his favorite daughter was able to bring a smile to his face. It faded, though, as soon as he processed her words. "How have you all been getting along in my absence?"  
  
"Oh, fine," Anna assured him. "Thomas and I manage all the financial affairs - he can do long division in his head, Father! I taught him barely three months after you left!" Encouraged by Norrington's smile, she went on. "And of course, Mama and Elizabeth made sure we weren't forgotten by our neighbors. I swear, Father, we must have gone to two balls every month!" Again her father smiled - it was no secret in the Norrington household how much Anna disliked formal occasions. "I think Thomas and I have managed affairs impeccably. You can fire your accountant and let us do it for you any time - and we'll be a good deal cheaper, that I promise!"  
  
"I will make sure to examine the account books," Norrington promised. Then his face became graver. "Anna, I'm gladder than you know that you and Thomas have done so well. Very glad indeed." He trailed off, staring at the parchment he still held.  
  
Anna decided she must breach the topic at some point soon. "Father, what is that?" she asked, gesturing toward the parchment.  
  
With a heavy sigh, Norrington looked back at the parchment. "It is," he said, in a voice so dull it frightened his daughter, "a discharge from the navy and a notice that I will be facing a court-martial in two months' time. I was lucky to be allowed to come back here and tell you."  
  
Anna sank into the other chair by her father's, stunned. A discharge? A court-martial? "But - but why?"  
  
"They claim that I smuggled goods that I did not pay for on this voyage," Norrington replied. At the shocked look on Anna's face, he hastened to assure her, "I did not do it, Anna, I swear that to you. But even if I bring the list of cargoes we shipped to England, I think that they will still court-martial me. You know I am not liked by influential people in England."  
  
"Because of the pirates," Anna supplied. "They think that if you were planning to eradicate the pirate threat in the Caribbean, that you should have done it by now."  
  
"Exactly," finished her father. "Just so. And they did not see the pirates as an important threat in the first place. What I mean to say, Anna, is that we are in danger, financially at the least. Which is why I am so glad that you and Thomas are proving to be so quick-witted." A slightly wistful look came into Norrington's eyes. "I suppose I should not hope that Elizabeth, too.?"  
  
Anna shook her head. "No. Elizabeth, I think, will never gain a head for figures or management." She hated to disappoint her father, knew he had had great hopes for his first child, named for the woman he had loved, but Elizabeth Norrington would never be the equal of Elizabeth Turner.  
  
"Very well, then." Norrington rose. "Come, Anna. We should leave the ship. I'm surprised she hasn't picked up a new crew and another load of cargo and sailed back to England by now!" They both knew the joke was weak, but Anna laughed anyway.  
  
"Father?" she ventured as Norrington opened the cabin door. He turned back to look at her. "Don't worry about us. Thomas is fourteen and I'm sixteen. We can take care of Elizabeth and Mama. We're not children anymore."  
  
Norrington reached out and pulled her into a fierce hug. Anna returned it no less fiercely. "And I won't let you be court-martialed and thrown out of the navy," she whispered into his coat. "The navy is your life, Father, and if I can do anything to save it, I will." She did not think he had heard, and she was oddly glad of it.  
  
Wordlessly Norrington held out his hand. Anna took it, and they both left the cabin and the good ship Mercury. 


	2. The Captain's Records

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Two  
  
Well, you can't say the reaction to Father's news was not spectacular, Anna thought grimly half an hour later, locked in the safety of her room and pacing the floor. Elizabeth had nearly fainted, and her mother had gone into hysterics, something she was prone to do. It had taken smelling salts, shakes, and repeated calls of "Mary!" from her husband to bring Mrs. Norrington around, and then she had clung, weepy, to her husband's shoulder and refused to be dislodged. Anna was quite glad to be able to escape to her chamber, and she suspected Thomas was as well.  
  
She sighed and sat down hard in the chair by her desk. How could her father be court-martialed? Even if the nobles in England had not approved of his pirate-chasing, they had to admit that the pirates were almost gone from the Caribbean. And he had served the navy faithfully for thirty years. Anna groaned and ran her hands distractedly through her waist-length chestnut hair. Something had to be done, and soon.  
  
Not for an instant did Anna believe the court's charge of smuggling. In fact, the very thought of her father, who had devoted his life to getting rid of pirates and smugglers, taking up that trade himself made her smile mirthlessly. If they were so bound and determined to get him out of the navy, she thought, they might at least have trumped up a charge that made a little sense.  
  
Therefore, her task was blessedly simple - to prove beyond a doubt that her father would not only abhor the very idea of smuggling, but had not smuggled anything on the Mercury's last voyage. And for that she would need the ship's account books and records - and for that she would need Gillette. Anna sprang from her chair, relieved to have a purpose now, and ran squarely into Thomas, who had just opened her door. Both fell flat on their backs, Thomas outside Anna's room and his sister inside it. When they stood, however, they were laughing. "Might I ask," Anna said when she had gotten her breath back, "why you felt that I needed to have my skull cracked?"  
  
Thomas' blue eyes, identical to hers, bore none of their usual spark. They were serious as he regarded his sister. "I thought you might know where the Mercury's records for this last voyage are." Anna saw instantly that her brother had reached the same conclusions she had, and she nodded in answer to his question. "I thought we should see if we can prove those lying bas-"  
  
"Thomas!" Anna warned.  
  
"Sorry. Those liars in England. I thought we should see if we can prove them wrong."  
  
"Exactly what I was thinking." Anna mustered a smile for her brother, but it was too brittle to pass as real. She was grateful for Thomas' tact in not pointing out that fact. "I thought Gillette would be most likely to know where the records are."  
  
"Good idea!" It seemed that Thomas had not thought of that. "Where would he be?"  
  
"Father would know, but I'm not sure if we should ask him - oh, wait, I feel so stupid! Gillette would be at his house, of course! He's been gone for a year - naturally he'd go home first thing!" Anna raced to her bed and snatched up her hat - and then froze mid-grab. "Only, where would his house be?"  
  
"Easy," Thomas said. "The middle middle-class section of Port Royal." Anna looked at him in surprise, eyebrows raised, and Thomas sighed with all the impatience of a fourteen-year-old boy. "Think about it, Anna! He's a captain, so he doesn't make a great deal of money. However, he and his wife both come from two of the better middle-class Port Royal families, so they would live in the nice-but-not-too-nice section." Thomas crossed his arms as though he were a lawyer and had just delivered the speech that would win him his case.  
  
Anna paused a moment, thinking over what he'd said, and smiled. "That's why we make a good team, Thomas." He beamed, exchanging the victorious look for one of pride at her praise. "You go tell Father, and I'll look at the city layout. We have one in the study, don't we?" At Thomas' nod, she tied her hat onto her head and followed him out of the door. They split at the staircase, Thomas heading downstairs to the drawing room, Anna across the hallway to the study.  
  
When Commodore Norrington had gotten married, one of the first things he had done in the new house he'd bought for himself and his wife was to outfit a proper study. Anna and Thomas had used it often in the past year, and so Anna knew exactly where to go for the plan of Port Royal's layout - the third drawer from the top in the largest cabinet. Pulling the drawer open, she withdrew a large rolled-up piece of paper and spread it out on the desk in the study. She found the Norringtons' home with ease - it was located close to the bluff overlooking the Caribbean Sea. From there, her finger traced down the streets and through districts until she found the one she wanted. Luckily, it was not too large - she and Thomas would not get hopelessly lost wandering around it. Anna wished she could take the city layout, just in case, but the thought of it getting lost on some street of Port Royal made her shiver. She rolled it up carefully and slipped it back in the desk drawer.  
  
The door to the study opened; Anna turned around. "Well?" she demanded of Thomas. "I've figured out where Gillette's district would be. Can we go?"  
  
Thomas nodded. "He said be back by suppertime, no later, so we have the whole afternoon."  
  
"Come on, then!" Even in a heavy dress and holding her hat onto her head, Anna was nearly out of the study door before Thomas.  
  
***  
  
Barely half an hour had passed before the two youngest Norringtons were knocking on Gillette's door. It was opened by a thin woman who scanned Anna and Thomas critically before admitting them into the house. Once they were inside, the thin woman, who Anna supposed was Gillette's housekeeper, gave them both another patronizing glance before leaving - at no great rush, Anna noticed with ire - to get Gillette. "Not getting off to a very good start, are we?" Thomas whispered nervously in his sister's ear as they waited.  
  
"If a ship is beset by a storm when it leaves port, that doesn't necessarily mean it won't make it through the voyage," Anna whispered back, quite proud of the seafaring analogy she had concocted on the spot. It seemed to do Thomas some good - he straightened, and when the housekeeper returned with Gillette following her, he was not nearly as intimidated by her as he had been.  
  
"Thank you, Janet," Gillette said as soon as he recognized his guests. "I'll speak with them alone, please." Janet gave a very audible sniff of disdain and left haughtily. "Gives herself airs, doesn't she?" Gillette asked in a low voice as Janet shut the door behind her. "As far as I can tell, she seems to think she should be privy to all the doings of this household. Please, sit." He motioned toward a few chairs scattered around the room - Thomas and Anna each chose one and sat.  
  
"Captain Gillette," Thomas began without preamble, "I think you probably know why we're here."  
  
"The commodore's court-martial," said Gillette instantly.  
  
"Exactly," Anna confirmed. "Thomas and I thought that we should do all we could to stop them from discharging Father, especially as he didn't smuggle. We have come here to ask a favor of you, Captain."  
  
"And what would that be?" Gillette asked, his brow furrowed in curiosity.  
  
Thomas leaned forward. "We would like to look at the records of Mercury's voyage."  
  
For one horrible moment, Anna feared that Gillette was going to refuse. Then he sat back and smiled. "I hope that I am blessed with children as devoted as you two." Anna sighed in relief, and Gillette raised his eyebrows at her in silent amusement. "I do not have access to the official records -" Thomas and Anna both slumped in their chairs; Gillette held up a hand. "- but I do have my own personal records. I like to keep them for every voyage I make. I counted the cargo myself, as it was being loaded and when we were out to sea. I can give you those records, if you want them."  
  
"Yes, please!" Anna said eagerly. Thomas echoed her sentiments no less fervently.  
  
"Very well. Wait here." Gillette rose and left the room. Once he had shut the door behind him, Anna relaxed utterly, sank weakly into her chair. "I thought he was going to say no," she confided. "And then I thought he was going to say he couldn't get the records."  
  
Thomas gave her a smile wan with equal relief. "So did I."  
  
The door opened, and Gillette came back in, a large leather-bound ledger in his hands. "Here. Just keep track of it, is all I ask. Those are my personal records of all my sea trips."  
  
"We won't lose them, Captain," Anna promised, taking the ledger and running her fingertips over the soft leather. This slim book might be her father's savior. Looking up at Gillette, she gasped, "Captain, we will never be able to thank you enough if this works -"  
  
"Nonsense," Gillette answered. "Just bring it back."  
  
"You have our words on it," Thomas assured him. "And we do thank you, Captain."  
  
Gillette, to Anna's amazement, flushed an embarrassed red and made a shooing motion with his hand. "Go on, now, before you make me feel silly." Hiding a smile, Anna rose to her feet, the precious ledger held to her chest, and took a step toward the door. When she heard Gillette's voice behind her, though, she stopped and turned around to face him. "Have either of you considered the possibility that you might not be heard in an English court of law?"  
  
Anna's eyes widened - she had not thought of that. It seemed that Thomas had, though - he nodded gravely. "If that happens, Captain, we'll either need to hire a lawyer or ask you to come to England. In fact, it would probably be better if we did do that - as Father's children, our words would be suspect."  
  
Gillette nodded. "At least you thought of it, and have plans made." Anna was intensely grateful to Gillette for not asking how they planned to pay lawyer fees, which were sure to be exorbitant in London. "Good luck, then," he said, sitting down again.  
  
"Thank you, Captain," Anna replied quietly. Thomas was holding the door open for her - she went through it. Her brother followed her out and closed the door behind her.  
  
Although glad that Gillette had had the tact not to bring up the subject of lawyer fees, Anna had no compunctions about discussing it with her brother in broad daylight. "How on earth are we going to pay lawyer fees?" she demanded as soon as they were walking back towards their house.  
  
"I don't know!" Thomas snapped. "It was the only thing I could think of that wouldn't inconvenience Gillette. But I don't know how we're going to pay the fees, so don't ask me!" Hearing his tense tone and sensing that this was a prickly topic for Thomas, Anna fell silent. Not another word was spoken the rest of their walk home. 


	3. A Bump, a Row, and a Retch

Chapter Three  
  
"Finished!" Anna threw down her pen gratefully and stretched her sore fingers. For half the day now, she had been deciphering Gillette's illegible handwriting, taking copious notes from his records, and organizing them into a simple tally of what had been ordered, what had been brought on board the Mercury, what had been sold, and what had been returned home. Thomas had helped her with the mathematics, but they had both checked each other's work and come to the same conclusion - there was no possible room for anything to have been smuggled. Gillette's records, although unreadable without goodly amounts of time to decode them, were precise to the gram. There was nothing that was not given an account for.  
  
Thomas picked up her transcribed tally sheet and went over it. "Don't you dare tell me there's a mistake on that!" Anna warned her brother. "If you tell me I have to pick up that pen again, I may have to kill you." Thomas smiled, but didn't lift his eyes from the tally sheet. When he put it down, he nodded. "It's good?" Anna asked.  
  
"Perfect." Thomas reached out and hugged her. Anna sighed in relief and threw her arms around her brother. "Let's go tell Father," he suggested.  
  
Anna picked up her tally sheet and was halfway to the door before a thought struck her. She froze. "Thomas, how are we going to get to London?"  
  
He blinked. "With Father, when he goes."  
  
"By then everything will be in place to court-martial him and throw him out of the navy!" Anna started to pace the room, her arms crossed and her fingers tapping her elbows. "We have to get the tally sheet and Gillette's records to London in time to get a lawyer to argue the case! If we get there soon enough, we might even be able to make them call off the court- martial!"  
  
Thomas sat down on Anna's stool. "How do we get there in time?" he asked softly.  
  
"If Gillette was making a trip, he could be there to present his records." Anna mused, thinking aloud.  
  
"And he'd have to stay there for two months until the court-martial," Thomas pointed out. "I thought we weren't going to uproot anyone's lives."  
  
"Well, you come up with an idea!" she cried, exasperated. "If all you're going to do is say what's wrong with mine -!"  
  
"That's not what I was trying to do!" Thomas snapped. He bit back the end of the last word, though, and when he spoke again, his voice was calm. "Anna. Give me the tally sheet. I'll show them to Father, and you can see if a ship is leaving for England any time within the next two months." He smiled, the smile he'd learned worked wonders on his sister's volatile temper. "You know your way around the shipyard better than I do, anyway."  
  
Anna closed her eyes and took deep breaths. Calm yourself, she thought. You do no one any good by being angry. "All right," she said, and surrendered her work to Thomas. "Good luck. Make sure Father will let us go," she called as her brother left her room.  
  
Once she was alone, Anna gave herself a few more moments to get herself fully under control. When she was confident of her calm, she tied her sun hat onto her head, walked down the stairs, and quietly let herself out of the house.  
  
The fresh air did her good. Anna breathed it in happily as she walked down to the shipyard, feeling herself relax with every step. I should get out of the house more often, she told herself, no matter what Mother and Elizabeth say about my complexion. She refused to let her good mood be spoiled by thoughts of what they would say when they heard of this excursion out into Port Royal without a chaperone. Instead, she played a game with herself that she had often played when she was a child. As she neared the bluff looking over the harbor, Anna tried to identify what ships were cargo ships, merchant ships, or ships built for fighting. Thankfully, she didn't see many of those. Except for the occasional French privateer, Port Royal saw little battle action. She knew it had in the days when pirates were as common as rancid butter in the Jamaican heat, but her father would rarely speak of his pirate victories.  
  
Anna was so engrossed in her game - so far, three cargo ships and one she couldn't see clearly enough to tell - that she did not notice the well- dressed woman whose path she stepped squarely into. She collided jarringly with the woman and fell to her knees. In her haste to get back on her feet and apologize, Anna tripped on the hem of her gown and fell again.  
  
"Be careful!" cautioned a voice that Anna knew, which bore a hint of laughter. A hand came into view, and Anna accepted the woman's help gladly. When she was upright, her face red with embarrassment - she should have been watching where she was going, not playing some childish game! - Anna opened her mouth to apologize, staring at her shoes. "It's quite all right, Anna," the woman assured her. "I'm not even very fond of this dress."  
  
Did she know this woman? She certainly knew the voice. She just hadn't looked at the face out of humiliation. Anna looked up, and knew in an instant that an apology for absentmindedness would not be needed with Elizabeth Turner.  
  
She made one anyway. "Elizabeth, I'm so sorry, I wasn't even watching where I was going!"  
  
Elizabeth smiled. "You're forgiven - on condition that you tell me where you were in fact going."  
  
Anna bit her lip. "The shipyard."  
  
"Without a chaperone?" Elizabeth looked quickly behind Anna. "I'm surprised your mother let you out of the house without your sister."  
  
Anna smiled faintly. "They don't know I'm not still there. I have to get passage on a ship to England."  
  
"And why - oh. The commodore's court-martial." Elizabeth's face, which had been smiling a minute before, turned solemn. "Anna, I'm truly sorry about that."  
  
"No, it's going to be all right if Thomas and I can get to London!" Anna said quickly. "We borrowed Gillette's records of the Mercury's voyage. If you examine them, there's no possible way for Father to have smuggled anything! We just have to show them to the admiral, and Father will be allowed back into the navy."  
  
"And you need a ship?" Elizabeth asked. A sparkle was coming into her eyes, a sparkle whose meaning Anna knew to be that Elizabeth was getting an idea."  
  
"Yes - one that's sailing soon."  
  
"Perfect!" Elizabeth's face was lit up. "Anna, my father has been recalled to England. They're finally allowing him to go back home, and he wants Will and me to come with him. You and Thomas can sail with us! You know us, at least, which might be more than you could say for another ship you might find, and we're sailing in three days." She looked carefully at Anna. "Do you want to?"  
  
"Thank you! Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" Anna cried. She threw her arms around Elizabeth impetuously and hugged her. "That's absolutely perfect! Thank you so much!"  
  
Elizabeth fairly beamed with joy. "Wonderful. Will you need much time to talk your father around?"  
  
"Thomas is working on him at this very moment," Anna assured her, "and he can work wonders with his words." She was grinning so hard her face hurt, but she didn't even notice it. "Elizabeth - I really can't thank you enough, especially since you and Father -"  
  
Elizabeth smiled sadly. "The past is done. I wouldn't take back my choice, but I always thought your father was one of the finest men I knew. I'm glad to do something for him. I always wished I knew him well enough to explain. He deserved better than what I gave him."  
  
Anna squeezed Elizabeth's hand. "I think he understands. Like you said, the past is done, and I'm sure he'll be grateful."  
  
"All right." Elizabeth sighed and shook her head to clear it. "Can you and Thomas be at the dock at eight o'clock three days from now? I'll stop by and remind you the night before."  
  
"Of course. We'll be there, and thank you so much!" Anna hugged Elizabeth again. "I'm so glad we're friends, even if you're older than me," she whispered.  
  
"So am I," replied Elizabeth, a smile back on her face. "I think my life would be much the worse if I didn't know you, Anna Norrington!"  
  
"Less madcap, at any rate!" Anna laughed. "I'll go back and tell Thomas."  
  
***  
  
When she arrived back at the Norrington household, she found her father and Thomas in the middle of a vociferous argument. Anna closed and locked the door quietly behind her as phrases drifted to her ears. ".don't be a fool, Thomas, you're only fourteen." ".rather be court-martialed than let us go." ".talk to me like that! I'm your father."  
  
Anna slipped into the drawing room and injected herself carefully into the argument. "We wouldn't be going alone, if that's what you're worried about, Father."  
  
Norrington looked at Anna, startled - he hadn't noticed she was there. "Why is that?"  
  
Anna took a deep breath. The only thing her father hated more than pirates was subterfuge, and her trip to the shipyard definitely counted as subterfuge. And that wasn't even taking into account his feelings when he heard the names of their prospective traveling companions. "Because there's a ship sailing in three days for England, and a highly respectable family will be on board. They've even volunteered to watch out for Thomas and me."  
  
"And who might this respectable family be?"  
  
Anna crossed her toes and took the plunge. "Governor Swann and the Turners." She went perfectly still, bracing herself for one of Norrington's rare explosions. The few times he was angry enough to have them, they were quite formidable.  
  
But to her utter shock, nothing came but complete stillness. Anna didn't look at her father - she was afraid to see what thoughts would be crossing his mind.  
  
Finally he spoke. "You have made the arrangements?" he asked, his voice tightly calm.  
  
"I have," Anna said with a good deal more spirit than she felt. "They are willing to have Thomas and me on board with them."  
  
"Then it seems there's very little I can do," Norrington said. "I wouldn't want to inconvenience them, or slight their generosity." Every word he spoke sounded to Anna like knives he was driving into himself. She flinched with each one and silently cursed herself in graphic language for bringing this pain on her father. "It seems that you and Thomas are sailing to England."  
  
"Thank you," Anna whispered. She caught Thomas' eye long enough to make him understand that she'd talk to him in her room, and then fled.  
  
***  
  
"Genius," Thomas pronounced as soon as he entered her room. "Utter genius."  
  
"Thank you," Anna said dryly. "Myself, I feel rather like a heartless prig."  
  
"Why, for heaven's sake?" Thomas demanded. He sat down and closed the door behind him. "You managed to find the perfect people - a family Father could never say no to. You even timed it perfectly, and you brought him around so easily!"  
  
"And cut his heart to ribbons in the process," Anna finished. She blinked hard and turned away from her brother. "Or didn't you notice that he felt like we'd betrayed him?"  
  
Thomas sighed heavily. "I did," he admitted. "And I didn't like it. But I thought you deserved credit for what you did. And Anna -" She turned her head around, her eyes bright with tears. "He wanted us to go. I could tell. He didn't want us to be in danger, but he wanted us to go if we could help. He's always had trouble letting himself do what he wants to do, instead of what he feels he has to do. He thought it was his duty to protect us, but he wanted us to try and help." Thomas stood up and put his hand on his sister's shoulder. He could feel it shudder beneath his hand with stifled crying. "So don't think it was entirely your fault. I love him - he's my father - but he let himself in for some of that pain. It wasn't all your doing."  
  
Anna sniffed back her tears. "Thank you," she whispered.  
  
***  
  
Three days later, Anna watched from the upper deck of the cargo ship Mermaid as sailors hauled up the anchor. It had taken no time to board, and Elizabeth was making short work of getting everyone settled below the deck. Anna had stayed to help Elizabeth unpack their things, but then she had gone up to the deck, where no one would be witness to her sudden and emphatic attack of fear and sadness. I'd call it homesickness if we were far enough from Port Royal to make that sound less ludicrous, she thought.  
  
The sail above her head unfurled even more, to catch the wind. Anna looked up at it, flapping in the breeze like a great bird's wing, and sighed despite her sadness. She had wanted since she was a child to be on board a ship, and here she finally was. That's what comes of hearing one too many navy stories starring your father, she thought, bringing a smile to her face.  
  
The Mermaid suddenly lurched beneath her feet. Anna made a grab for the railing, and then made the terrible mistake of looking down. Forty feet below her, the dark morning sea roiled and churned as the Mermaid cut through it like a carving knife through ham. It sloshed against the ship's sides and made it roll with the waves. "Elizabeth?" Anna croaked, and was promptly and heartily sick.  
  
Welcome to life at sea, she thought, miserably hanging over the railing and vomiting. And oh, what a joy it is.  
  
Author's Note - All right, I know that I've gone for three chapters now with no sign of living, breathing pirates - but bear with me! They're coming with a vengeance in Chapter Four! And if they don't.well, then you can keelhaul me. I promise. 


	4. Enter the Pirates

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Four  
  
A week saw the Mermaid clear of Port Royal and heading east to England. The increasingly choppy waters of the ocean did nothing good for Anna's stomach, and she had yet to recover from her first attack of seasickness. Will and Elizabeth had kindly said nothing about her miserable condition, and Thomas had tried valiantly to do the same. Anna could tell, however, that her brother found the entire situation incredibly funny. She was not in a mood to appreciate his gallantry in not mentioning it.  
  
"Anna?" Will opened the door and stuck his head into the cabin she shared with Elizabeth and the Turners' young daughter. "Time for your walk." The Turners had insisted that a daily walk on the quarterdeck would do her good. So far, Anna hadn't been able to spot many improvements, but she bowed to their superior knowledge of seafaring and did as they suggested. She climbed slowly out of the cot she slept on and made her way toward the door and Will's outstretched hand.  
  
The Mermaid lurched. Anna made a grab for Will's hand, caught it, and promptly overbalanced them both, sending them toppling to the floor. Will got up quickly and helped Anna stand. With Anna leaning on Will's shoulder, they made it onto the quarterdeck. The governor was standing there as well. Is it still right to call him the governor? Anna wondered vaguely, transferring her iron grip from Will to the ship's railing. Or should I think of him as Mr. Swann now? The thought was too complicated for her seasick brain, so she let the technicality slide and watched the gray sea churn below her.  
  
Beside her, Governor Swann suddenly stiffened. "Will," he said, catching hold of Will's sleeve and directing his son-in-law's attention to something far away. "Will, what's that?" Anna rubbed her eyes clear and squinted in the direction of the governor's pointing finger.  
  
Will's face darkened swiftly as he stared at something Anna couldn't see. She was about to brave the tempest brewing on his face and ask what it was when he wheeled around to face the crew, working on deck. "Pirate ship!" he shouted, pitching his voice to be heard from aft to stern. "Pirate ship coming up from behind! Beat to quarters - call the men out to fight!"  
  
"Pirates?" Governor Swann went white. "But - but what proof -?"  
  
Will waved a hand at whatever he saw. "No colors on the mast. Every ship flies its country's flag, but pirates have no country. You'd best get below the deck." The governor, his face ashy with fear at Will's announcement, hurried to obey.  
  
"What should I -" Anna started to ask, but Will had taken off, carrying the message to any crew member who might not have heard. That left Anna standing on the quarterdeck, straining her eyes to try and see a pirate ship. A puff of salt air wafted up to her - she bent double, choked, and spluttered, struggling not to throw up. When she straightened and grasped the railing again, she thought she could now see something. Dashing moisture from her eyes impatiently, Anna leaned farther out over the railing.  
  
There. She saw it. A hulking brute of a ship, moving far too fast for its build. Anna coughed and squinted at it. Black sails fluttered from its mizzenmast, and she could see now that Will had been right - the ship flew no colorful flag.  
  
Anna glanced behind her. The deck was a seething mass of activity as the crew hastened to let loose the sails and make all use of the wind at their backs. Anna was skeptical about their chances of success - the pirate vessel had all sails flying as well, and a good lead on them. The Mermaid was a cargo ship, not a frigate or a ship of the line, and not built for speed. Fear suddenly stabbed at her stomach, and her breath came fast and shallow.  
  
What about the passengers? What about Thomas, and Elizabeth? Anna gripped the railing and made for the way down to the lower decks as fast as she could, slipping past seamen carrying ropes and shoving into those who blocked her way. Anna found that fear was an astonishing catalyst - her seasickness was nearly gone. She found her cabin, threw the door open, and gasped in relief - Elizabeth was in there, and she wouldn't have to go chasing all over the Mermaid to find her.  
  
Elizabeth looked up from the doll's dress she was mending. Her daughter tugged at her skirt and said, "Hurry up, Mama!" Elizabeth was about to turn her attention from Anna and back to the dress when she registered the pale fright on Anna's face. Her head snapped back around, and she looked hard at Anna. "Just a minute, Kate," she said, handing her child back the doll. Kate sighed and shuffled into her corner of the cabin. "What, Anna?" Elizabeth asked, rising and coming over to where Anna stood.  
  
"Pirates," Anna said in a low voice, so as not to frighten Kate. "Will and your father spotted them not five minutes ago, coming up from the stern."  
  
For a moment, Anna thought that Elizabeth was going to faint. Then her hand reached out and gripped the doorknob so tightly that Elizabeth's knuckles were white - but she remained standing. "Kate!" Elizabeth called. Anna admired the control in her voice. "Katherine, listen to me. You must stay in here, all right? I'll come back and fix Susan's dress later. I have to talk to Anna." Kate nodded agreeably, and Elizabeth gripped Anna's arm and stepped outside of the room, pulling Anna with her. Closing the door behind her, she said quietly, "What exactly did Will and Father see?"  
  
Anna filled Elizabeth in on what had happened on the quarterdeck. When asked to describe the ship, she complied. "It's coming on so fast. I've never seen a ship so fast! And it has black sails spread over every inch of mast it's got." Anna shivered. "I wish it wasn't a pirate, believe me, but I don't see how it can be anything else!"  
  
Anna stopped. Elizabeth had gone strangely still. "Black sails, you say?" she asked. "And coming almost - impossibly fast?" Anna nodded. Elizabeth's eyes grew large, and then, to Anna's utter shock, she laughed grimly. "That makes it the second time that a ship I'm on has been chased by the Black Pearl. Maybe it really is bad luck to have a woman on board."  
  
"The what?" Anna gasped. Sailors' tales of the Black Pearl, the most fearsome ship in the Caribbean Sea, had given her no end of nightmares when she was young. It was something of a nightmare come true to be on a ship pursued by the Pearl. "But - but -" she stammered, fear reducing her to monosyllabic panic.  
  
Elizabeth took her hands. "Calm down, Anna. We may yet get out of this alive, though I think I cannot say that for the Mermaid. Just keep your wits about you and stay off the upper deck, and we'll be fine."  
  
"Will's up there," Anna remembered. "Should I at least go tell him you know about the pirates?"  
  
"Yes," Elizabeth agreed. "And tell him which ship."  
  
"If you see Thomas -"  
  
"I'll be sure to let him know."  
  
"Thank you." Anna left Elizabeth standing outside the cabin door and ran for the upper deck.  
  
It was utter chaos. The Black Pearl - if Elizabeth was right, and something told Anna that she was - had closed a good chunk of the distance between her and the Mermaid in almost no time. It was coming up leeward to catch the Mermaid's wind in its own sails and halt the cargo ship. Anna pushed and forced her way through crewmen and officers alike, looking for Will.  
  
She found him - or rather, saw him - climbing up the mainmast to unlash a sail. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Anna turned her face upward towards him and bellowed, "WILL!" The wind carried her voice up to him, and he twisted on his precarious perch to look down at her. "ELIZABETH SAYS IT'S THE BLACK PEARL!" Anna roared, wishing he would come down so she wouldn't have to yell his wife's message to him.  
  
Obligingly, he did, scampering down from the rigging fairly quickly for someone who'd hardly ever been at sea. "What was that?" he asked, scooping up a coil of rope and handing it to a passing sailor.  
  
"I said, Elizabeth says that ship's the Black Pearl. I told her that we were being chased, and when I described it - black sails, very fast - she knew what it was." Will looked both remote and angry, and it scared Anna. "She's safe below the deck," she hurried to assure him, "and so's Kate. I'm going back down right now -"  
  
Without any warning at all, Will grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her down on the deck floor. An instant later, a cannon ball struck the Mermaid's hull and shattered the railing near where Anna had been standing. She twisted her head around to stare at the wreckage that had, a moment before, been solid wood. "Thank you," she said shakily to Will.  
  
"You're welcome, and thank you for the news," he said, pulling her to her feet. "Now get below decks with Elizabeth before another ball catches you!" Anna, her eyes huge with fright, nodded emphatically, and fairly ran to the stairs that led to the cabins.  
  
Thomas and the governor had joined Elizabeth and little Kate in their cabin. Anna's arrival made them a little bit cramped, but only a little. Elizabeth, Anna noticed, was loading a rifle quite expertly. Beside her, Thomas was measuring out powder for another rifle that lay across his lap. "There," he said, and nodded to her cot. "I grabbed one for you, too, from the weapons cache on board."  
  
Anna grabbed her rifle and sat next to Elizabeth, trying to copy her actions as she loaded her rifle. Ball, square of cloth with it, measure out powder, pour the powder in, tamp it down, and close the gun. It felt heavy in her hands, and chills ran down Anna's spine at the thought that this stick of wood and metal could kill a man. She held some unknown pirate's life in her hands.  
  
Elizabeth went to the door and opened it a crack, listening to the chaos on deck. "The Pearl's caught our wind," she announced as the ship came to a halt. "It's coming up on the starboard side." Anna reached out and gripped Thomas' hand. "The marines and sailors are taking positions." A silence fell on deck, a silence more eerie than the sight of that black-sailed ship racing toward them.  
  
Something thudded into the Mermaid's side. "Grappling hooks!" Elizabeth cried, stepping back involuntarily from the door.  
  
"Elizabeth, I wish you'd move away from there -" tried the governor.  
  
"I'm fine," Elizabeth said tensely. "I'm fine. I'm in no danger yet." Anna listened intently to the sounds that now came down from the deck - yells and whoops and clangs of swords and blasts of rifle fire. Anna gripped her own rifle and wondered in the back of her mind if, when the time came, she'd be able to shoot it into someone.  
  
The end of the battle came as swiftly as the Black Pearl had crept up on the unsuspecting Mermaid. Elizabeth turned from the door and reported heavily, "We've been taken. Get your rifles ready. Don't shoot until I tell you to." She stepped back and trained hers on the door. Anna got to her feet and aimed from a different angle, and Thomas took up the position opposite his sister. Kate crawled over to her grandfather, who sat on the bed in the far corner.  
  
They remained there, rifles primed, cocked, and ready to fire, for only a little while. In a few minutes, Anna heard footsteps pounding down the stairs to the lower decks, and someone pushed the door open.  
  
Anna's jaw dropped in astonishment. The pirate was a woman.  
  
Elizabeth's face registered surprise as well, but the female pirate wasted no time in ducking below the barrel of Elizabeth's rifle and whacking her ankles with the flat of her sword. Elizabeth stumbled as another pirate made his way to the door. This one wore a faded brown tricorn hat, and beads jingled in his black hair. He raised one eyebrow as the female pirate snatched Thomas' ankles, pulling him to the floor, and cocked the pistol she held, aiming it at Elizabeth and Thomas.  
  
Anna shoved the barrel of her rifle against the newcomer's stomach. She bit her lip until it bled out of nervousness, but her finger moved to the trigger. The pirate froze. Not even his expression changed. Only his eyes shifted, from Elizabeth and the female pirate to Anna. Then he raised a finger and said, as though Anna had simply been a little rude, "That's not very nice, love."  
  
That was not what she had expected a pirate to say or do. Anna's brow furrowed in confusion. Then a very heavy sword hilt connected heavily with her head. Spots danced before her eyes, and she too wavered on her feet, but she stayed standing. Puzzlement awoke in the pirate's eyes, and he stepped back a few paces from her rifle. "I see I'll have to carry you, then," he said, and before Anna knew what he had done, the pirate had neatly swiped her rifle and tossed her over his shoulder. "Sweet dreams, love," he said, bringing the sword hilt on her head again. When the spots returned, they blended into a whirl of black speckled with dancing flecks of colored light. Anna felt her head throb in considerable pain the instant before she went limp, slung over Captain Jack Sparrow's shoulder. 


	5. Conversations with the Captain

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Five  
  
Someone had grabbed her shoulder and was shaking her none too gently, bouncing her brains around in her head. Anna came unwillingly awake. As she opened her eyes, her head bellowed emphatically in pain, and she clapped her hands to her throbbing skull, jostling the hands of whoever had shook her awake. Her eyes were adjusting badly, perhaps due to the enormous lump on her head, so she couldn't see the pirate's face.  
  
She could hear him, though. "Young missy, what be your name?"  
  
Anna was in no mood to be interrogated - she couldn't think clearly anyway through her headache. "I don't know," she said irritably. "I think I forgot when half my mind was knocked dead."  
  
"None of that now, ye hear!" snapped the pirate. "The captain wants the name of every prisoner."  
  
"Well, send the captain down and let him ask me." Anna hated the whiny sound of her voice in her ears, but she had been working hard to put together a defense for her father, had threatened a pirate, and had been knocked unconscious by a heavy sword hilt - she was pretty sure that she had some right to whine. "If you don't mind, I'm going back to sleep." She rolled over on her side, putting her back to the pirate, and closed her eyes. The darkness eased her headache, and she sighed in relief. She heard the pirate splutter indignantly and incoherently behind her, then sigh. His booted feet made loud contact with the floor as he walked out. Good, she thought. Maybe he will bring the captain.  
  
Suddenly Anna sat bolt upright. What had happened to the Turners, and to Thomas? Her fears were less for Elizabeth - she had acted as though the captain knew her - but Will had been fighting on deck and could easily have been killed. And she had not the faintest idea how Thomas might have fared.  
  
At least she had some leverage on the captain. He wanted her name, and she wanted to know about her brother. If she could talk him around, she might be able to find out. Anna settled back down, but every fiber of her was alert for the sound of the door opening.  
  
***  
  
Gibbs found Jack in the captain's cabin of the Pearl, thoughtfully picking through a pile of miscellaneous items heaped on top of the table. Standing in the doorway, Gibbs watched as Jack carefully pulled a large carved clock from the pile. The captain cocked his head, examining the clock, then got up and walked with his usual swaying step to a corner of the room. He held the clock up on the wall, scrutinized the position, and nodded his head, setting the clock down on the fireplace mantel.  
  
Gibbs coughed. "Captain?"  
  
Jack turned around. "How are the prisoners doing?"  
  
"That's why I came here. One of 'em - that girl you knocked out, sir - she won't give me her name."  
  
"She won't?" Jack raised an eyebrow. "Well, shall I see to that meself, then?" Without waiting for Gibbs' answer, which would have been in the affirmative, he made his way to the door. Stopping in the doorframe, he turned to Gibbs and said, "Tell Annamaria to set a course for St. Catherine's Bay on the Southeast Point. "About time we docked in a port."  
  
"Aye-aye, sir," replied Gibbs. Jack stepped past his first mate into the corridor and started down to the hold, where the prisoners were being kept.  
  
When he opened the door, Jack had barely five seconds before Elizabeth Turner got to her feet, stalked over to him, and slapped him soundly on the face. Jack felt his jaw carefully to assure himself that Elizabeth hadn't broken it. Then he straightened, tried on a smile, and said, "Nice to see you again, too."  
  
"I'm sure," Elizabeth snapped. "Are you going to give us an explanation, Jack, or do we not merit one?"  
  
"Explanation?" Jack thought about it for a minute. The smile came more easily to his face this time. "Well, love - I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, how's that?"  
  
Elizabeth looked ready to bite his head off. Instead, she stood before him, seething, and then turned, stalked back to the bench she'd been sitting on when he came in, and sat firmly down.  
  
Jack grinned. "Actually, I didn't come in here to see you. I came in here to deal with a certain prisoner who, I understand, has refused to give her name." He noticed that the young boy sitting next to Will stiffened at his words. Very little escaped Jack, although most people thought otherwise. "I'll be going along, then." He walked through the room and opened the door that led to the adjoining cabin, where he'd dumped the girl after knocking her out. He could see a girl-sized lump covered in a white sheet lying on the bed with her back to him.  
  
He cleared his throat. The lump didn't move. Again he coughed, and she stayed absolutely still - too still to be sleeping. A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. She was being very stubborn.  
  
Time to break her of the habit. Stubborn people did not fare well on pirate ships. Better she learn that from him - he didn't often hold with the habit of breaking a recalcitrant prisoner's neck, unlike some pirates he had known. Jack was about to speak when the sheet shifted, and a brown head rose from the pillow. "Are you the captain?" asked the girl, rubbing the top of her head and blinking to see him in the room's semi-darkness.  
  
"Aye," Jack said, "I am. And who are you?"  
  
Jack saw her open her mouth to answer, caught unawares by the casual question. She caught the name in her throat, though, and said, "First I'd like some questions answered."  
  
"Last time I checked, I was the captain of this ship, not you, savvy?" Jack said, his voice low and dangerous.  
  
Anna flushed in anger. "And the last time I checked, you were a pirate and I was a girl of good breeding!" she snapped. "You tell me whose questions should be answered first!"  
  
Grinning, Jack answered easily, "The pirate's, when the girl is on his ship and at his mercy. Of course, should the pirate be on the girl's father's territory, the pirate should answer the girl's questions. But if he had his wits, the pirate would be long gone before the girl could get around to asking the questions. So in either case, it's the pirate who gets the answers, love. Best tell me what I wanted to know."  
  
He could see the girl's neck stiffen. She tightened her jaw, and her answer came from between clenched teeth. "Anna Norrington."  
  
"Norrington?" Jack's eyebrows shot up. "Would you, then, be a relative to the esteemed Commodore Norrington of Port Royal? Old acquaintance of mine."  
  
"I don't recall him ever mentioning being on speaking terms with a pirate," Anna replied coldly.  
  
"Years before you were born, love," Jack assured her. "Well, I may be a pirate, but fair's fair. What were your questions?"  
  
Surprised, Anna stared at him. "You're going to answer them?"  
  
"To the best of my ability." His smile was infectious, and Anna felt herself smile slightly in return. "Ask away, Anna Norrington."  
  
She took a deep breath. "First - what's your name?"  
  
He bowed extravagantly. "Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, but at my own first."  
  
Anna's eyes widened. "Jack Sparrow?"  
  
Jack sighed. How many times was he going to have to correct people on this one point? Was it so hard to remember? "Captain Jack Sparrow," he informed her.  
  
"Sorry. But -" Anna shook her head to clear it. She had heard the name before, from both sailors' tales and in connection with Will and Elizabeth's marriage. Norrington had spoken the name - once, and never again. Anna had concluded that her father had had come off the worst in his dealings with the pirate captain. And here he was in front of her. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "My second question - my brother, Thomas. Where is he? Is he still here?"  
  
"Ah. If you mean the boy next door with that quite impressive thatch of hair -" Jack was cut short by Anna's exclamation of relief.  
  
"He's here?" She leaped out of the bed, and paid for it instantly as her head screamed, protesting her sudden movements. "Ow -" She stumbled, and Jack caught her. Anna went stiff in surprise. Jack apparently noticed nothing out of the ordinary as he scooped her up and plopped her back - gently - on the bed. He did not know that Norrington and Will were the only males to ever have carried her before - well, carried her when she was conscious, she amended. Anna wasn't quite sure how she felt about Jack holding her. It was a very pleasant feeling - but not an entirely comfortable one, either. She decided to say nothing about it, and instead confined her spoken thoughts to the pain in her head. "I'm sorry -"  
  
"Stop apologizing and ask questions," Jack suggested. "Apologies get you very little, and questions considerably more."  
  
"Right." Anna coughed once, then asked to be sure, "Thomas is in the other room?" At Jack's nod, she added, "What about the Turners, and Governor Swann?"  
  
"With your brother." Jack rubbed his cheek for some reason, looking aggrieved but in no way remorseful. "Perfectly fit, I can assure you - especially Elizabeth." He winced.  
  
Anna smiled suddenly. I understand now, she thought. "She slapped you, didn't she?"  
  
"Aye." Jack shook his head in bewilderment. Anna decided not to point out that he had captured the ship she'd been sailing on and caused her considerable fright for her family. She had an idea that he wouldn't understand what she was driving at. "Are those all your questions, then?"  
  
"Yes. No. Can I - is there something I could have to eat?" she asked tentatively. Pirates, she knew, had different policies regarding captives, and she hoped that Jack at least fed his prisoners. "And the Turners and my brother would probably appreciate some food too," she added on an impulse, proud that she'd had the presence of mind to try to get them taken care of.  
  
"Well.there probably is something." Jack nodded, making the beads in his hair click softly against each other. He dipped his head in farewell and left Anna alone again in the darkness. 


	6. Destination

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Six  
  
The gruel that Gibbs brought for Anna was plain fare, but filling and warm. Anna ate it gladly, and felt perfectly healed as she put the last spoonful in her mouth – in fact, she felt well enough to try to stand. Setting the bowl on the floor, Anna carefully swung her legs over the side of the hammock she was in. She paused to take deep breaths, relaxing herself, and then put her feet onto the floor, gritted her teeth, and stood.  
  
She actually managed to stay upright for a full minute before a blinding return of the headache drove her back to the hammock. When it did, Anna stumbled back to the hammock, threw herself on it, and lay quiet, holding the sheet tight around her and trying to stop her legs from shaking.  
  
It took her a full week before she was able to stand and stay standing, and another half-week before she trusted herself to walk around. Once she did, Anna made her first visit next door, where the Turners and Thomas were. They had not yet been allowed out of the hold, despite the fact that Jack knew them. They had come in to see her, but this was the first time she was able to go to them.  
  
Elizabeth had calmed down somewhat about being a prisoner. Thomas had regaled Anna with the story of Elizabeth's greeting of Jack, and Anna was glad to see her sitting calmly with Kate next to her. Elizabeth looked up and smiled as Anna walked in. "Glad to see you on your feet again," Will said, and Anna grinned at him.  
  
"Are you all right?" she asked Will quietly – she knew better than to ask Elizabeth and possibly set her off again. "Thomas keeps telling me that you are, but – really?"  
  
"Aside from the obvious handicap of being prisoners, we actually are fine," Will assured Anna. "I wish we knew where Jack plans to go, though."  
  
Anna sat down. She hadn't thought of that – hadn't thought of anything, in fact, except headaches and walking for the past two weeks. "Probably back to Jamaica," she mused, thinking aloud. "He wouldn't go anywhere away from the island – he's known there, and that's mostly where he plies his trade – right?"  
  
Will nodded. "That's true," he agreed. "We were a week away from Port Royal when the Pearl attacked, and I'd say we've traveled twice the distance back to Jamaica – so we ought to be docking soon."  
  
A thought occurred to Anna. "Let me ask him!" she suggested. "I'll just throw a temper tantrum when someone brings me my next bowl of gruel and demand to be taken to the captain." She smiled mischievously. "It worked the first time I tried it, after all."  
  
Will shook his head in mock dismay. "It's truly a pity how quickly pirates can corrupt the innocent," he sighed, but he was grinning back. "Try it, then. Please. And tell us if you can find anything out." Anna nodded. "And Anna? Probably best to just ask straight out. Jack's not too fond of people beating around the bush. Be straightforward with him."  
  
"I'll remember that. And of course I'll tell you!"  
  
"Grandfather?" asked Kate's voice across the cabin. "Can I have one of the feathers in your hat? Susan needs one for the ball she's going to." Anna looked at Governor Swann, who froze in indecision for a few moments. Then he reached up and reluctantly snapped one of the feathers off his tricorn. Anna's esteem of him went up when he artfully hid his reluctance and presented the feather to his granddaughter with a flourish.  
  
Elizabeth looked across at Anna and beckoned her over. Obligingly Anna got up and sat down next to Elizabeth. "Will says you've been all right," she said quietly.  
  
"We have, I suppose," Elizabeth conceded. "But still –"  
  
"No! Stop right there. Do not get yourself angry again." Anna quickly put a hand over Elizabeth's mouth. "It does nobody any good."  
  
Elizabeth sighed heavily and nodded to say she'd behave. Anna removed her hand. "I'm going to see if I can find out where we're going. I'll tell you if I find anything out." She noticed that Elizabeth's eyes were on her daughter, and they had gone from being flashing with anger to sad. "Elizabeth? What's wrong?" she asked.  
  
"Nothing," Elizabeth answered automatically. Anna raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "I don't even mind being a prisoner so much!" she exploded suddenly, managing to keep her voice quiet. "I'm not worried for myself, or for Will, or for your brother and you – we can all take care of ourselves, and my father will be fine – but..." She dropped her head into her hands. "But I wish that this hadn't happened to Kate," she muttered. Anna had to strain her ears to hear.  
  
She took Elizabeth's hand and squeezed it gently. "Elizabeth, look at her," Anna whispered. "She's only six – she doesn't even fully understand what's going on. I think she believes that you and Will are in complete control of the situation. You have to be calm, or else she won't know what to think." Elizabeth lifted her head and looked at Anna. "With any luck at all, she'll remember this as a not-so-clear adventure that happened to her when she was very young. Don't lose control and leave her to think all kinds of horrible things could happen!"  
  
Elizabeth swallowed. "All right," she said shakily. "All right. Thank you. I needed to hear that." She smiled ruefully. "I hope someone tells you that when you're a mother!" Anna laughed with her. At the sound, Kate turned around and trotted back to Elizabeth. "Play?" she asked, cradling her doll with its new feather hat against her chest.  
  
The door opened, and the female pirate – whose name, Anna had learned, was Annamaria – came in, skillfully balancing a tray of gruel bowls on one hand as she opened the door with the other. She seemed surprised to see Anna on her feet and with the other prisoners, but she made no comment, simply handing Anna a bowl along with everyone else.  
  
"Annamaria," Anna asked easily, scooping up a spoonful of gruel, "where are we going?"  
  
"That's the captain's business." Annamaria gave Governor Swann the last bowl and turned to go. Anna let her put her hand on the knob before she spoke again.  
  
"Could I talk to him?" she asked casually, as though an audience with Captain Jack Sparrow was something that ordinary mortals could obtain by merely asking for it.  
  
Annamaria snorted. "What business could he have with you?" she asked. It was not a snide question, just a question.  
  
"I need to speak to the captain!" Anna told her. Somehow, she had the feeling that temper tantrums might work on Gibbs, but that they would earn her absolutely nothing with Annamaria. "I need to!" she repeated.  
  
"If Captain Sparrow wants you to know where we're docking, trust me – he will let you know," Annamaria answered.  
  
"But what if he doesn't and I do?" Anna cried in exasperation. Was there no possible way to talk this woman around? Apparently there was not.  
  
"Then that's your headache." A smile touched Annamaria's mouth as she added, "Literally, in your case." She stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her, not noticing Anna's fierce scowl aimed at her back.  
  
Anna was very aware that she was sulking, and hated herself for it. She made herself sit up and eat her gruel, trying not to listen to the gloomy silence that had descended on everyone after her failed attempt to find out where they were going. She had finished half the bowl when, on an impulse born of thwarted wishes, anger, and plain curiosity, deliberately smacked her bowl down on the bench where she sat and got to her feet. "Excuse me," she said, stepping carefully across the room. "I'll be back in a short while." Anna grabbed the doorknob and tested it.  
  
As she'd expected, it was locked. Biting back a frustrated snarl, Anna turned back to face the other prisoners. "Elizabeth? Do you have a hairpin?"  
  
"Yes." A knowing grin on her face, Elizabeth pulled the pin from her hair and gave it to Anna. "Be delicate," she advised. "Do you know how to pick locks? We tried as soon as we could, but we weren't very successful. Not even Will." She smiled sweetly at her husband, who mock-scowled at her for alluding to his less-than-honorable parentage.  
  
Thomas got up and hurried to his sister. "Here, let me try. I think I learned something from the last time I tried." Anna surrendered the pin, and Thomas inserted it carefully into the lock, wiggling it minutely around. The room was utterly silent, except for the scratching of the pin on the metal lock. Suddenly Thomas sucked in his breath. "What?" Anna demanded. "What is it?"  
  
"I've almost got it." His voice was no more than a whisper, as though a loudly-spoken word would throw the pin away from its position. "I just need – one more pin." He looked hopefully at Elizabeth, but her hair had come loose and was falling around her shoulders – she had no more. Anna's hair, too, was loose. "Anything, then!" Thomas whispered. "Anything small and sharp."  
  
"Kate!" Anna cried. The little girl looked placidly at Anna. "Kate, we need to borrow Susan's hat. Just for a minute. Then she'll get it back, I promise!" Kate considered for a moment, and then removed the feather from the doll's head and handed it gravely to Anna. "Thank you!" she exclaimed, and turned, feather in hand, to Thomas. "Here. I'll hold the pin in place – you maneuver the feather." She surrendered the feather and carefully put her hand over Thomas' on the pin, matching his grip and fingers exactly. When her brother was satisfied that Anna had it, he slid his hand out from under hers, poked the sharp tip of the feather into the lock, and pressed it carefully upward.  
  
Anna felt the tumblers click into place. With one hand still on the pin, she reached out with the other one, which was trembling with nerves and hope, and tried the doorknob. The door swung open, and she let out an explosive gasp. "You got it!" she told Thomas, struggling to breathe again. "You got it." She took the pin from the lock and handed it back to Elizabeth, who slipped it into her pocket. Kate took the feather from Thomas and stuck it back into her doll's hair, and Anna pulled the door open a little farther to peer out into the hall. No one was there.  
  
She turned back to face everyone. "I'll be back soon," she promised, "and I'll know where we're going." No one commented on the grim set of her face, which was oddly disconcerting. Anna slipped out of the door, closing it softly behind her.  
  
As the door slid shut, Will let out his breath in as sudden a gasp as Anna's a moment before, and laughed tightly when Elizabeth, Thomas, and Governor Swann all did the same thing at the same time – he was clearly not the only one with a bad case of nervousness. Kate, unconcerned, sat down and held her doll on her lap in the silent hold.  
  
***  
  
Every time that the wooden boards creaked softly under her feet, Anna jumped. Each sound made her glance quickly behind her, in case Annamaria was waiting around the corner, and her nervous mind turned every sound she didn't make into the unfriendly footsteps of the crew, coming to throw her back into the hold and put more locks on the door.  
  
But the workings of her fevered mind remained only imagined fears, and at last Anna stood before the carved door of what she guessed – and fervently hoped – was the captain's cabin. Standing in front of the door, she leaned close to it and listened to what was going on in there.  
  
Was that – snoring? Anna listened closer and was forced to admit to herself that whoever was in that cabin was sound asleep. A fine time for him to go to sleep, she thought. Still, she was not going to be put off by a snoozing pirate! She gritted her teeth, curled her hand around the doorknob, and opened the door. Her eyes took in the scene – a finely furnished cabin with all manner of stolen plunder adorning walls and ceiling, and lying in the hammock – Anna, embarrassed, averted her eyes and shut the door quickly behind her. Lying in the hammock was Jack Sparrow, bottle in hand, fast asleep, snoring, and as naked as the day he was born.  
  
Avoiding the sprawled-out form of the pirate, Anna made her way to the side of the hammock. The windows, she thought studiously. Think of the windows. Think of the clock on the fireplace. Think of anything but the fact that this man is naked in front of you. She quickly banished the thought from her mind. Focusing her eyes on Jack's forehead – a safe subject for her eyes, as she had seen that naked before – Anna coughed loudly and pushed at the hammock self-consciously.  
  
Jack's only movement was to mumble something Anna couldn't hear.  
  
She bit her lip, clenched her hands into fists, and tried again, pitching her cough to carry and giving the hammock a good shove. Jack rolled over. The half-full bottle slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor, sloshing some of its contents onto the wood planks. Anna got a lungful of the smell, coughed again – this time involuntarily – and stumbled back as the ship rolled on the waves. It was some kind of liquor – some kind of strong liquor.  
  
Turning her mind back to waking Jack, Anna could think of only one thing left. Oh, no, protested part of her. Oh, no. You can't ask me to touch him! That's – that's not fair! It – it just isn't! But her common sense, which mercifully had not fled at the sight of Jack in the nude, snapped, Who cares if it's fair? Just get it over with and stop whining!  
  
Anna squeezed her eyes shut for a second. When she reopened them, she marched purposefully to the hammock. Even keeping her eyes confined to Jack's upper body wasn't quite enough to stop her embarrassing mind from thinking that he really looked quite splendid without his shirt on... Anna slapped herself on the hand to call her mind back to the task at hand. Reaching out, she grasped Jack's shoulder and shook it firmly.  
  
She yanked her hand back as though it had been burned when Jack shifted around in the hammock and began to breathe audibly. He shifted position, and she saw his hand reach for the bottle he'd been holding. It was only when he realized that it wasn't in his hand that Jack sat up, his black hair flying around in wild disarray as he looked around the cabin for it.  
  
Then he saw Anna, and through his confused haze, a very knowing and very uncomfortable smile came to his lips.  
  
Of course, it hurt too much to smile at the moment, so he let it fade off his face. "What are you doing?" he muttered, slurring his words slightly as he sat up.  
  
Anna retreated to the wall. He couldn't get up; he absolutely must not get out of the hammock! The smile he'd given her had made her sure of that. It had also made her feel both queasy and wonderful, and she wished she could understand it.  
  
For heaven's sake, Anna! railed some part of her that she thought must be incredibly cold to not be affected by Jack's smile. Keep...your mind...on your job! She straightened and took a step forward. "I came to ask where we're going," she said loudly.  
  
Jack fell back into the hammock, clutching his head. "Not so loud," he protested weakly.  
  
"Sorry." Anna bit her lip. "But where are we –"  
  
"First things first, love," Jack cut her off. "First I need to find me rum."  
  
So that's what that horrible-smelling thing was! "I think it's over there," Anna pointed out, indicating the spot where the bottle had rolled. Jack followed her pointing finger with his eyes until he saw the bottle. He swung his legs over the side of the hammock and was nearly on his feet when the ship lurched. Jack lost his balance and toppled back into the hammock, which began to swing, the ceiling creaking. "No, wait," Anna said quickly. "I'll get it." Her face red, she ran to the corner, scooped up the bottle, and brought it over to Jack. She fixed her eyes on his face as she gave it back to him. Jack tossed back a long drink. When he looked back at her, Anna could see clearly that he was going to have a monster hangover when the effects wore off. From the faint lines forming around his eyes, she even guessed that he might be starting to experience some of that hangover now.  
  
He was also smiling that wonderful, horrible smile again. Anna felt herself flush as red as a lobster and clasped her hands together in front of her, twisting her fingers around each other. Please don't let him say anything, she pleaded silently.  
  
Her luck was not in at all. "Mind telling me what you were looking at, love?" he asked, his voice teasing. "Or would you rather not?"  
  
Anna's face felt as though it was on fire, it was so red. "Nothing," she muttered, her fingers twisting agitatedly around. It was true. She had looked at nothing inappropriate. The fact that a part of her she hadn't known existed had wanted to look at inappropriate things did not need to be brought up. "I wasn't looking at anything," she repeated, then on a flash of inspiration added, "because I was too busy gagging at the rum." She coughed to emphasize her point.  
  
For once in his life, Jack Sparrow dropped a point he would have enjoyed pursuing. He shrugged and raised the bottle to his lips to take another drink. He brought it down, though, with a sudden movement and looked closely at Anna. "Wait – you're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be in the hold."  
  
Anna thought a very obscene oath she'd picked up from one of the Mermaid's sailors. "I am," she admitted, speaking slowly but thinking as fast as she could. What could she say?  
  
"Probably best to just ask straight out. Jack's not too fond of people beating around the bush. Be straightforward with him." Will's voice echoed in her mind, and Anna groaned. He would know best, having dealt with Jack before. She would have to tell the truth. "I picked the lock," she said, deciding not to mention Thomas in case Jack got angry. "Where exactly are we going?" She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for an answer.  
  
Jack blinked at her. Another smile was slowly creeping onto his face. "You picked the lock, came all the way here, and braved the sight of me in me birthday suit to ask where we're heading, am I right?" Anna nodded curtly. Jack looked for a minute as though he was going to laugh, but instead he just shook his head. An instant later, he clutched it in pain as more of the hangover kicked in. "Go away," he muttered, sinking back into the hammock.  
  
"Not until I find out –"  
  
"Not so loud!" Jack protested.  
  
Anna toned her voice level down, but lost none of the indignation in it. "Not until I find out where we're going!"  
  
A groan emitted from the depths of the hammock. "We're about a day away from St. Catherine's Bay. Now leave me be, or I'll have to get angry." A tousled black head appeared over the hammock's edge. "And me when I'm angry is not a good thing to inflict on yourself, savvy?"  
  
Anna nodded again. She gratefully backed out of the room, closing the door behind her – and ran straight into one of the crew. He was an older man, with a brightly colored parrot perched on his shoulder. "Anchors away!" squawked the parrot. "Anchors away!"  
  
"Shut up!" Anna hissed to it. The man, oddly enough, said nothing. "Um – sir, I can explain –"  
  
"Anchors away!"  
  
"Please, just make your parrot be quiet, I –"  
  
"Anchors away!"  
  
"Cotton? That you, man?" came Jack's voice, muffled by the door but audible nonetheless. "Take her back down to the hold – and lock the door." Still without speaking, Cotton took hold of Anna's arm and propelled her forward. She stumbled along, trying to keep up with him. It didn't help that the parrot, at random times, would squawk out some strange phrase, most of which were directed at her. "Anchors away" seemed to be his favorite, but Anna heard a few "Dead men tell no tales," spoken with a beady glare focused on her, and once the parrot had the effrontery to suggest that Cotton "Keelhaul the swabby!" At that, Anna rounded on the parrot with a glare to match its own, and the bird shut up.  
  
When they came to the door of the hold, Cotton seemed surprised to find it unlocked. Nevertheless, he opened it, gave Anna a push inside, and shut it. She heard a key turn in the lock, and faced the others, all of whom were fixing her with eager, desperate stares.  
  
"St. Catherine's Bay," Anna reported. "We're about a day away."  
  
"St. Catherine's Bay?" repeated Will, his eyebrows shooting up. "Jack seems to have found a new favorite rest spot."  
  
"Unless, of course, we're closer to St. Catherine's than Tortuga," Elizabeth suggested. "Which, come to think of it, we are, aren't we?"  
  
"The Black Pearl took us in the middle of the Caribbean," Will said, chewing his lip thoughtfully. "So – yes, we are closer to St. Catherine's. It's on the very tip of the Southeast Point."  
  
Thomas spoke quietly. "And once we land, the pirates will all disembark – and we'll be left alone on the ship." There was some type of suggestion in his voice, but Anna couldn't quite think what it was.  
  
It was little Kate who said it. "Then can we sail home?" she asked, looking at Elizabeth and Will expectantly.  
  
Anna gasped. "Yes!" she whispered. "Couldn't we take the ship and sail back?"  
  
Will glanced doubtfully at Elizabeth. "Could we?" he asked. "Do any of us know how to sail a ship, especially a ship like the Black Pearl?"  
  
"We know how some things work, right?" Anna asked. She was too excited to see how slowly Will nodded. "And maybe we can figure out the rest from there! The Southeast Point isn't even that far from Port Royal! I'm sure we can make it!"  
  
"It is worth a try," the governor said. "I'd be – happy – to help," he added bravely.  
  
"All right," Will said. "When we pull in to port and the pirates leave, we'll give it a try." 


	7. An Abortive Mutiny

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Seven  
  
From his place at the wheel of the Black Pearl, Jack could see the port of St. Catherine's Bay as the ship drew near to it. He smiled in anticipation. He had recently discovered the port when he'd needed to remast the Pearl and Tortuga had been too far away. Since then, Jack had made sure that they docked in St. Catherine as often as in his beloved Tortuga. Annamaria in particular seemed to have taken to St. Catherine, and Jack thought it good to let his sharp-tongued female pirate visit her favorite port as often as she could.  
  
He called over his shoulder to Zhao, the midget, "Coming up on St. Catherine!" Zhao nodded to show he heard and began bellowing orders to the other pirates on deck in a loud voice that had surprised Jack at first, coming from such a small body. Now he had grown used to it, though, and focused his attention on bringing the Pearl into the city.  
  
"Captain?" Gibbs' voice came from behind him. "What'll we do with the prisoners?"  
  
There was a problem Jack hadn't considered. He tapped his fingers against the wheel, thinking. "Keep them in the hold," he said finally. "And put another lock on the door." He grinned to himself, remembering what Anna had said about picking the lock. "A strong lock," he added.  
  
"Aye-aye," Gibbs answered. "I'll go do that now." He turned around and left Jack at the wheel, to steer and think.  
  
Mostly his thoughts were on the prisoners – one in particular. Jack's grin widened as he remembered Anna's scarlet face when he had started teasing her. There was no question she was Norrington's daughter – she was snappish, intelligent, and much too moralistic for her own good. She'd never get any fun out of life if she went around blushing every time she saw someone less than fully clothed. Not, Jack reminded himself hastily, that he had any intention of helping her remedy that situation. He had never liked people who were fond of robbing the cradle, and had no intention of being one himself. "Besides," he muttered, "her bloody father would kill me if I so much as winked at his daughter."  
  
A moment later, he snapped at himself, "And just when do I have to justify my choices to myself?" He shook his head to clear it – and almost rammed sideways into the dock. Jack quickly turned the wheel, and the Pearl just barely made it without smashing the dock to pieces. Why had he let himself be distracted, and by that girl?  
  
All in all, Jack was not too happy with himself when he called to his pirates, "All right, mates, you're free men for now! And free woman," he added quickly. The Black Pearl's crew cheered, dropped the various objects they were holding, and raced down from the ship to the dock. Jack was surprised at their eagerness. He supposed that they had probably been at sea for too long – he didn't mind seven months of sea travel, but some of them might. I'll have to make sure we come in to port sooner next time, he told himself as he followed them off the Pearl, formulating a plan as he walked. He would go to his favorite alehouse, get stone drunk, and be carried back to his ship. Then he could rest up for a few days, and when he recovered, Anna Norrington would be the last thing on his mind. Jack smiled. Life could be very good sometimes.  
  


* * *

  
"They're gone," Thomas whispered. His face was pressed against the door, his eye to the keyhole as he strained to see out of it. Then he stood up. "Give me the pin." Elizabeth pulled the pin from her pocket and put it into Thomas' hand. He was quicker now, used to the mechanisms of the lock. "Hold it there, Anna," he whispered when he had the tumblers lined up. As she had done yesterday, Anna copied his fingers' placement on the pin and handed Thomas the feather. With a neat upward twist, he opened the lock, and Anna tried the knob.  
  
It wouldn't turn.  
  
She went white, and looked at the others, horrified. "It won't open!" she gasped, jiggling the knob to show them.  
  
"That little –" Elizabeth almost swore vigorously, but Will caught her eyes and nodded warningly toward the governor, and she fell abruptly silent.  
  
"He must have put another lock on the door," Will said. "We all heard that one unlock. Can you two pick the new one?"  
  
Thomas shook his head despairingly. "It's an outside lock. I can't see it from here."  
  
"Wait a moment." Anna pressed her face to the crack between the door and the wall. "I can see the bolt holding it shut, at least."  
  
Will stood up and walked briskly over to her. "Where? Show me." Anna pointed with the tip of the pen. Will nodded. "Both of you, get back," he ordered Anna and Thomas. He pulled out his boot knife, and they obeyed instantly.  
  
"What are you going to do?" Thomas asked, but Anna held up her hand to silence him. She had an idea from the appraising look on Will's face as he examined the bolt minutely, and he would need silence to concentrate if she was right.  
  
She was. After a few minutes of scanning what he could see of the bolt, Will carefully began to cut away sections of the door with his knife. Once it was far enough away from the wall, he slid the tip of the knife into the opening he'd made and scraped out a shallow indentation in the bolt. Fitting the knife tip into the indentation, Will put pressure on the bolt, slowly forcing it away from the door. When he stepped back, his face was covered in a fine mist of sweat, but the bolt had been shoved out of its place, and the second lock was picked. "There," he gasped, wiping his face with Elizabeth's handkerchief and sticking his knife back into its boot sheath. "It's open."  
  
Anna pushed the door open and peered cautiously out into the hallway. "No one's there," she reported in a whisper. "I think it's safe." She crept out of the room silently anyway, in case a guard had been left. She doubted it, but there was no reason to underestimate Jack. The others filed out quietly after her.  
  
It didn't take long for them to realize that they were, in fact, alone on the Black Pearl. Once they did, though, they sprang into action. It soon became clear that none of them knew a lot about how ships actually moved, but from Will and Elizabeth's albeit minimal experience, and the Norringtons' random pieces of knowledge that they'd picked up, they put together an idea of what had to be done.  
  
First they located the anchor cable. Anna assigned Thomas and the governor to that, saying, "When we give the word, pull on that thing." Then, after various tugs on various ropes attached to the mainmast, they were able to loosen the sails to catch the wind. There was, in fact, a good wind coming from just the direction they needed. Things couldn't be more perfect, Anna thought happily as she, Elizabeth, and Kate made their way down below the deck to the oar galley – Will had been chosen to steer. Granted, Anna wasn't sure of the ability of two young women and a child to be able to man the sweeps, but once Thomas and Governor Swann had the anchor hauled up, they would come down and help. So it was with optimism and rising hope that Anna sat down, gripped the middle of the Black Pearl's bank of sweeps, and sat down to pull.  
  


* * *

  
"No!" Jack protested, shaking his head vehemently and making his hair fly around his head. "No, no, you see, that's not the best way to rig a mast, because that way..." He trailed off. What had he been about to say? He couldn't remember, so he took a gulp of rum to help his thinking. Which tankard was he on now? He vaguely recalled Gibbs telling him that perhaps five was enough, but that had been a long time ago... Jack swallowed down some more and blinked to bring the man sitting across the inn's table into clearer focus. Not that he had been seeing clearly for half an hour at the least...or was it an hour and a half?  
  
Someone was shouting something, and quite loudly, too. Jack twisted around and yelled, "Bugger off, mate!" Then he realized that the person had a hand on his shoulder and was in fact yelling at him. Jack blinked again, staring groggily at someone who looked like Cotton...but no, Cotton couldn't talk...so maybe it was Hendrikson, the Dutchman who was the Pearl's lookout man and climbed the masts like a spider – unless he climbed a spider like a mast... "Who're you?" Jack asked blearily. "The man an' I were tryin' to have a civilized conversation."  
  
The man sighed heavily. "Hendrikson, Captain," said a voice in accented English that Jack's frazzled brain found it hard to understand. "You must come, Captain! At once!" Hendrikson slapped a few coins onto the table to pay for the tankard of rum, took a firm grip on Jack's sleeve, and hauled him bodily out of the tavern.  
  
Once he was outside, Jack could breathe again. He inhaled deeply, but nothing penetrated his rum-induced haze – nothing, that is, until Hendrikson shook him hard and directed his eyes to the horizon. Then he stood up as straight as a ramrod and blinked harder than ever.  
  
There by the docks, was the Black Pearl...slowly inching away from St. Catherine's Bay.  
  
The first feeling that Jack felt was disbelief. Hot on disbelief's heels came pain, and fear, and then anger. Jack Sparrow was not an easy man to anger, but when he was angered, it was harder to obtain his forgiveness than it was to anger him. He threw aside the tankard he still held, after only one more drink from it, and bellowed, "Get the crew out of there!" Shaking off Hendrikson's hand, Jack took off at a dead run towards the docks. Hendrikson, obedient to his captain's wishes, raced no less swiftly back into the tavern, grabbing by the collar and hauling out the Black Pearl's mostly inebriated crew, and decided that later would be a better time to tell Captain Sparrow what he had heard while Jack was getting drunk.  
  


* * *

  
Anna's relief at seeing Thomas and Governor Swann come pounding down into the galley passed away almost instantly upon catching sight of their white faces. "What?" she asked tensely, giving the sweep she held a good pull. The next moment, she gasped and winced. She had felt the Pearl move, but only a little. Her arms felt torn from their sockets, and she had given most of her strength to that one pull. Elizabeth seemed to be faring little better. Her optimism was bleeding away by the minute. "What is it?" she demanded, summoning her strength for another try at the sweep.  
  
"We got the anchor up," reported Thomas, "but I think we'll all be lucky to escape from this caper with our lives." He elaborated on seeing his sister's suddenly stark white face. "There's a dinghy coming after us with the Pearl's crew."  
  
Anna found it hard to breathe. The ship was barely moving, and real seamen would be able to catch up with them and board them. And she was sure Jack would not be as merciful as he was the last time. She closed her eyes in despair and rested her head on the sweep that she would never be able to move. She felt her eyes sting with bitter tears. How was this fair? How was any of it fair? She had been a fool to think they could escape, and now they would all die because of her.  
  
She started up as Thomas shook her hard. "Anna!" he snapped. "We may be doomed, but do you want to go out crying or fighting?" He took a seat in front of her, grabbed a sweep, and hauled at it. "Help me!" he ordered her tersely. Anna sat up, wiped her tears away, and took a fresh grip on the sweep. "Ready?" Thomas asked, glancing at the other side, where Elizabeth and Kate had one sweep and Governor Swann the other. "And pull!" All five of them hauled, and the Black Pearl inched forward.  
  
Why doesn't the wind push us along? Anna wondered desperately. The thought drove home for her how little she knew of ships, and she laughed bitterly at herself as she heaved and strained at the sweep. "Pull!" she yelled, and five pairs of hands made another attempt to move the ship forward.  
  
And then Anna heard the worst sound that had ever reached her ears – the sound of wild relieved yells, and the pound of booted feet on the deck above her. "It's over," she whispered, feeling light-headed with disbelief and fear. "It's over."  
  
Any minute the pirates would come down to the galley and find them. The thought galvanized her into action. "Does anyone have weapons?" she demanded. Thomas nodded – he had raided the weapons cache on board when they had left the hold. "Good. Everyone take one, and stand ready to fire," she ordered. She chose a small pistol for herself and faced the door, holding the gun at arm's length and chest height. "They'll be here any moment," she whispered as her tiny army took positions. "Don't be distracted."  
  
Silence fell on the galley after Anna's whispered words, a silence that disquieted and frightened. Kate, the only one without a weapon, clutched at Elizabeth's skirt. Anna's breathing rasped in her ears, and she breathed in more air to steady her racing heartbeat. The only thought in her mind was Please don't let me die. Please don't let any of us die.  
  
Footsteps ran toward the door, and a shot rang out. "Down!" shrieked Anna, dropping to the wooden floor and pulling Thomas down with her. The bullet fired through the door soared harmlessly over five heads, all tremblingly pressed to the floor. Anna sprang to her feet a moment after the bullet embedded itself in the far wall and fired her own pistol at the door.  
  
The door was shoved open, and four pirates barreled through it, screaming at the top of their lungs. Instinctively Anna stumbled backwards, and the next thing she knew, they had grabbed her and thrown her hard onto the floor, swiping her pistol in the process. They dispatched the others the same way, and tied them up once they were disarmed. Anna lay, shaking, in her bonds, wondering why they hadn't just killed them. Maybe Jack wanted a word before he hung them all.  
  
He did. The captain stepped through the doorway of the galley a few minutes later, all traces of a swagger gone. His eyes were steely and cold. Anna stared mutinously into them, but she shivered as Jack met her eyes, and she flinched away from the raw fury in his gaze.  
  
"Just to let you all know," he said softly, "no one steals this ship from me. Ever. Not ever again. And those who try pay a high price for that." His eyes flashed icily over all of them, coming at last back to Anna. "Savvy?" She nodded, her mouth dry with pure terror. "Good." He turned on his heel and walked out. He slammed the door shut as he left. The sound reverberated throughout the galley, and no one said anything after he had gone. There was really nothing to say. 


	8. Hendrikson's News

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Eight  
  
Jack paced around the perimeter of his cabin restlessly. There was a bottle of rum that lay in his hammock – thoughtful Annamaria had probably sent it up – but it was untouched. Jack needed his head unclouded by his beloved rum.  
  
The penalty that the prisoners must all pay was death. That was a rule of thumb on board the Pearl. Anyone who tried to take the ship from Jack would be put to death. Three years ago he'd had to enforce that rule, and Jenkins, a man they'd taken on in Tortuga, had swung from a yardarm. It was a fact, a rule that had been consecrated with Jenkins' blood and was now unbreakable.  
  
But these were not ordinary mutineers! Jack told himself, working himself up into a frenzy as he stomped back across the cabin. Some of them were the people who had helped get the Pearl back, and surely he owed them better than an ignominious death on a pirate vessel. But then, shouldn't they have known there was no chance to escape? They should have thought! And yet, he had been shipwrecked with Elizabeth, had shared the breaking of the curse with Will...had been sentenced to death by the governor... "Right fond memories all around," Jack muttered. He reached for the bottle, but stopped himself in time. Once a sentence had been decided on, then he would get roaring drunk – but until then, no rum. He scowled at himself and started back around the cabin.  
  
Will and Elizabeth had not been the driving force of the attempted escape, Jack decided with relief. Whatever their faults as law-abiding citizens, they would not have been so foolhardy as to concoct a plan to steal the Black Pearl. They were idealistic and hopeful enough to participate in one, but the idea had not been theirs. Neither had the governor been the power behind the mutiny. Jack very much doubted that he could be the power behind anything. And the Turners' daughter was only six.  
  
That left the Norringtons, two people whom Jack could well believe had made the plan. He swore. He had been starting to like Anna at least, when she'd told him about sneaking out of the hold. Jack could easily see her taking control of the mutiny, though – too easily for his comfort. No, she would have to swing, and her brother, too... "And then that damned commodore will be after me forever!" Jack finished for himself. "This just gets better and better with each passing second!" He made another grab for the rum, and this time he got it and took a long drink. It made him feel better.  
  
"Captain?" Someone was at the door, and knocking quite hard, someone with a female voice. Jack hoped it wasn't Anna again – the last thing he needed was to have to tell her he'd decided to kill her. "Come in," he said."  
  
It was Annamaria, and she looked peeved. Jack let go of the bottle as soon as he caught sight of her face. Annamaria was the only one of his crew who objected strenuously to his rum, and he preferred to keep her temper directed at someone other than him. "Captain, she wanted to see you." With distaste, Annamaria added quietly, "She demanded a parlay. I don't know where she learned about that."  
  
So it was Anna, then. The crew knew that Elizabeth was well versed in the pirate code. Jack sighed. He was bound by Anna's request as much as Annamaria was. "Let her in, then." Annamaria stepped out of the room, leaving Anna standing in the doorway. Anna jumped into the room as Annamaria slammed the door behind her. "I have nothing to say to you," Jack warned her.  
  
"I know." Anna swallowed hard. "I know. It's just that – it's that I have something to say to you. To ask you."  
  
"Ask, then. You called for a parlay." Jack folded his arms across his chest and stared unblinkingly at Anna.  
  
"Thank you." Her eyes wavered from his for a moment, but then she raised them and met his gaze squarely. This is a change, thought Jack. This is the first time I've ever seen her look at me without wanting to murder me. "Captain Sparrow, I – apologize – for my actions earlier today." Anna winced. Words that sounded proper in a drawing room in Port Royal had no place on a pirate ship, but they were the only way she knew to apologize – and the only way she knew to beg. "It was wrong of me –"  
  
"Damn right!" Jack snapped, irritated by her stilted politeness.  
  
"Will you let me finish, Sparrow?" Anna flared, embarrassed. "Thank you," she said again. "You – I'm sure that –" She gave up trying to be tactful. Jack didn't seem to be taking to it. "You plan to execute us, don't you?" she asked forthrightly.  
  
Jack was impressed. Not many people dared be so forward with him. "Aye," he answered, hating himself for starting to like her again.  
  
"It was mostly my fault. We would never have done it if I hadn't pressed everyone else to." Anna bit her lip, but held her head up. It was the only dignity left to her. "What I'm saying is – don't kill them. They're not the ones at fault. If you need someone to make an example of – kill me. I insisted we do it – I deserve the punishment."  
  
Her chin was quivering, and her voice was shaky with fear, but otherwise she held herself as bravely as a sinking ship going down with all flags flying. Jack felt pity stir in him, and he reached out for her hand to comfort her, all thoughts of her sentence flying from his mind. He almost spoke her name, but stopped himself in time.  
  
"No." Anna stepped back a pace. "Please, just tell me if –" She bit her lip again, more fiercely, and drew blood. She gasped softly and wiped it away. "Jack, please –"  
  
"You're crying," Jack said in shock, watching a stray tear make a path down her cheek. He watched it race down to her jaw line and tremble there for a moment before it fell silently onto her shoulder. "Anna, you're crying," he repeated, taking another step toward her. Only once before had he seen a woman cry, and that had been his mother, so long ago that it seemed like another life. Annamaria never cried, and neither had Elizabeth when he had first known her. Jack moved closer, reached out again to wipe away the second tear that was trickling down from Anna's other eye.  
  
She turned around, lifting her arms against the wall and burying her head in them. "I'm not." Her voice was muffled by her arms, but Jack was close enough to hear it. "I'm not," she insisted. "I can't be crying."  
  
"You are," Jack pointed out. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. "See that, there?" He touched her cheek with the tip of his finger, where a tear lay. "That's a tear, love, and when those come onto your face, you're crying." Gently he brushed it away.  
  
Anna looked up at him, her mouth twisted with sorrow and fear. The next thing Jack knew, she had thrown her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. He stumbled backward a few steps in surprise, but then held still and let Anna cry into his shirt. She was holding onto him so hard that her fingers dug into the back of his neck. Jack carefully put his arms around her and held her while she wept, her back shaking with sobs. Finally she sniffled once, and her iron grip relaxed. For an instant, she lay quietly against his chest.  
  
Then she remembered who he was, and who she was, and she started back, releasing him. Jack opened his arms and let her go, and Anna quickly backed up, putting enough distance between them to prevent her from going back and asking him to hold her and comfort her again. She wiped her face with a shaking hand and asked, "So – do you accept my terms?"  
  
Jack didn't know what to say. Fortunately, someone knocking on his door saved him from trying to find an answer to satisfy both Anna and him. "Let me get back to you on that," he said as he walked over to the door and opened it. "Hendrikson!" he exclaimed. "What –"  
  
"Jack, I've something I need to tell you." Hendrikson darted a suspicious glare at Anna and muttered, "Alone."  
  
"Anna, love, would you mind steppin' outside for just a minute?" Jack asked. It wasn't a request, however, but a command, and they both knew it. Silently, Anna nodded and slipped out of the room. Once the door was shut, Jack scooped up a cleaning rag and stuffed it under the doorjamb before he turned back to Hendrikson. "All right, tell me."  
  
Hendrikson leaned in closer to Jack and spoke in a murmur. "In St. Catherine, before we...left...I heard some news. There's a convoy of French merchant ships heading for Haiti, the French colony in Jamaica –"  
  
"I know what Haiti is!" Jack cut in. "Go on."  
  
Hendrikson lowered his voice even more. "Except they're not merchants. They're ships of the line, warships, flagged and disguised with extra bulk to look like merchants, and their cargoes are firearms and weapons. Once they land in Haiti, they'll reconfigure, take on crews, and launch an attack on Jamaica – while the governor is at sea and the naval officer in charge stands to be court-martialed."  
  
Jack took a moment to process Hendrikson's information. Then he whistled softly as it penetrated his mind in full. "Which means we've just lost all Jamaican ports in the Caribbean Sea," he finished, "which means we either drift at sea until we starve, or go to England and get hanged for our trouble."  
  
"Exactly," Hendrikson agreed grimly.  
  
"Thank you." Jack nodded briefly. Hendrikson knew a dismissal when he saw one – he nodded back and left the room, leaving the door open for Anna.  
  
She was a very different Anna than the one who had drifted quietly out of Jack's cabin a minute ago. Now her eyes were blazing, and every line of her body was coiled to spring. "You heard," Jack said resignedly. She must have.  
  
"I did." Anna shut the door and almost ran across the cabin to grab Jack's hands in hers. "Jack, we have to go back, we have to stop them –"  
  
"What's this 'we'?" Jack asked, freeing his hands and holding Anna back at arm's length. "The last I heard of it, you were begging to be hung."  
  
Anna sighed impatiently. "But we have to go back! They'll take Jamaica –"  
  
"I expect they will. And how do you expect one single ship, crewed by the minimum number possible to sail it, to defeat a convoy of French ships of the line? Tell me that." Jack reached for the bottle of rum that he'd dropped into the hammock and drank.  
  
To his shock, Anna reached for it and pulled it out of his hands. "Please, Jack! Where will you go, if they take it?"  
  
"The British will come back for it," Jack told her. He made a grab for the rum – she held it out of his reach. "They'll be bound to."  
  
"When the news reaches them, I'm sure they will," Anna replied. "But when will they get it? In a month? Two months? By that time, the French will have subdued the people and gotten the colony reorganized as theirs. We can't wait!"  
  
"And how do you propose we attempt this nonexistent savior suicide mission?" Jack was panting with the effort of trying to recover his rum. Damn woman, she kept holding it out of his way.  
  
Anna's smile was feral, and very self-satisfied. "You have the governor on board your ship, Captain Sparrow."  
  
"What?" Jack blinked. "What are you getting at?"  
  
"Admitted, he's the recalled governor, but the colonists know him. They'll rally around him if he comes back, and the French can't keep control of a mob. They'll head for Port Royal first, and that's where he's known best. If we go back around, the people will join Governor Swann and fight for him. It's brilliant."  
  
"And it would never work –"  
  
"Jack, you know the sea, ships, plundering, and all the business of being a pirate. You know it very well, and I'll concede that in an instant." She smiled. "But I know landlubbers. Trust me on this one." She tossed the bottle of rum into the air, and Jack caught it gratefully. "Will you at least think about it? Please?"  
  
Jack sat down in his hammock. "I'll think about it," he promised.  
  
"Thank you." Anna turned around and walked out of his cabin.  
  
Jack muttered under his breath, but Anna's arguments kept returning to him. "You have the governor on board your ship...They'll rally around him if he comes back...I know landlubbers. Trust me on this one." And he did trust her on that point, too. She was right. She was very right.  
  
"It would be something new," he said wistfully. Plundering ships got predictable after a while – all they had to hear were the words "Black Pearl" and they rolled over like dead fish. Saving a colony – now there was something he'd never done. And Anna was right, he had the perfect setup.  
  
"It's the rum affecting my judgments," Jack decided. He stepped out of his cabin and went up on deck. Hendrikson had just taken over the helm from Annamaria. Jack walked over to the Dutchman and announced, "Set a course for Port Royal."  
  
"What?" Hendrikson turned his head to stare at his mad captain. "Are you out of your mind, Jack?"  
  
"Always was, always will be," Jack replied cheerfully. "Do it, Hendrikson!"  
  
"Why?" demanded the frazzled Dutchman.  
  
Jack grinned. "We're going to save Jamaica. Set the course, man!" Hendrikson obeyed. Searching the deck with a quick glance, Jack spotted Gibbs and made his way over to his first mate. "Gibbs, turn the prisoners loose. We're going to need every hand on deck for this little caper." He scratched his chin, pretending not to notice Gibbs' look of complete shock. "And when you do, tell Anna I said yes." Gibbs nodded and left the deck, shaking his head in bewilderment. Jack grinned again and began to shout orders.  
  
Soon the prisoners came up on deck, shaking their own heads and blinking in the light. Jack strolled over to them. "Gibbs, assign them jobs." He caught Anna's eye and winked. "Consider the hangings off," he told them. "Get to work, now!"  
  
Anna reached out and caught him by the sleeve as he turned. "Jack – thank you," she said quietly.  
  
Jack grinned at her and freed his sleeve. "No trouble, love." 


	9. Plans and Reactions

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Nine  
  
"So how exactly do you plan to go about letting everyone know we've got the governor with us?" Jack asked, pushing his chair back from the table to rest on its back two legs. Picking up an apple from a bowl on the table and biting into it, he looked across the table at Anna and raised his eyebrows.  
  
She leaned forward, folding her arms in front of her. "Well, one solution is to send a message to the acting governor."  
  
"How? We've only the one ship, love. Want an apple?"  
  
Anna took the proffered fruit and bit into it. "No messenger birds, either, I take it?"  
  
"What do you think this is, a bloody communications center?" Jack retorted. "One of your stories, maybe? This is a pirate ship. We carry only what we need, and the least amount possible of that."  
  
"Except rum," Anna teased. "Then you take all you can of that."  
  
"Absolutely," Jack agreed shamelessly. "And in answer to your question, no. We're dealing with one ship and no way of getting messages sent to anywhere unless we bring them."  
  
"All right," Anna replied. She took another bite of her apple, chewed it, and swallowed before going on. "Dock in Port Royal at a lesser-known place – I'm sure you know one." Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw Jack's reminiscent smile. "Tell me the story later – I want to hear it. Once we dock, send Thomas and me to my father."  
  
She was interrupted as Jack's chair slammed into the floor. He stood up, the apple dropping from his hand onto the table. "Oh, no," he said emphatically. "No, no, no. I'm having no dealings with that man again unless I can't help it. Think of another way."  
  
"I did!" Anna pointed out, peeved. "You shot them out of the water."  
  
"Because they're bloody impossible!" Jack snapped.  
  
"Jack, he's not going to hang you – not while the governor's on your ship and under your control. My father will want no part of the French in Jamaica, and he will do anything he can to prevent that – even if it means allying with a pirate. That I promise you." Jack still looked unconvinced, and Anna huffed with annoyance. "He did it once before, didn't he?"  
  
"Aye," Jack conceded. "And dragged me off to the gallows as soon as the business was over."  
  
"Well, he won't do it again. I –" Anna broke off, suddenly aware of how trite her words would have sounded had she spoken them.  
  
"You what?" Jack pulled out his chair and sat again. Damn him, he was smiling again! Anna looked down at her apple, aware that she was probably blushing furiously. "What?" Jack persisted.  
  
Anna bit her lip. "I – I won't let him." She felt a rush of embarrassment, and suddenly looked up at Jack. "All right? I won't let him kill you."  
  
Jack's smile softened. "Good enough. The word of the commodore's daughter has, I take it, some influence in the commodore's household."  
  
"It does," Anna admitted. "And I wouldn't want my father to kill you."  
  
"And why is that?" he asked, his voice soft and teasing.  
  
"Because – well –" Anna made herself stop babbling and breathe before she went on. She wanted very much to look away from Jack, but she couldn't for some reason she didn't fully understand. "Because I care about you – I mean, about what happens to you – I mean –" Breathe, she told herself firmly. It did not help greatly. "I mean – you didn't have to spare us. You could easily have killed us all, and we would have understood. I owe you my life, Captain Jack Sparrow." Anna grinned sheepishly. "As clichéd as that sounds."  
  
Jack's next words made her catch her breath. "My pleasure, love." Her eyes darted up towards his, almost afraid to look at him, and she swallowed hard. She didn't realize she had started to lean toward him until the edge of the table introduced itself sharply to her stomach, and she flushed and sat back, wondering what might have just happened if the table hadn't intervened, and feeling very sorry that it had.  
  
"So," she said, going back to her plan, "if Thomas and I tell Father about the French convoy, he will help us. He'll hide us all – even the Pearl's crew – in our house until we can tell everyone that we have the governor with us."  
  
"Probably be best to start the uprising after the French come in," Jack said thoughtfully. In the space of a few moments, he seemed to have forgotten that the very air had just throbbed with the unspoken words and wishes of both of them. "That way, we don't have to fight off the ships of the line."  
  
"How many could the Black Pearl account for?" Anna asked.  
  
"Probably two, before she took too many hits to stay afloat. The French are tough fighters." At Anna's thoughtful look, Jack said quickly, "But I'm not letting her fight. The Pearl is my ship, not the British Crown's. They can waste their ships as they like, but I choose the Black Pearl's battles, and I'm not willing to let her sink for England."  
  
Anna could understand his position, although it was not the one she'd hoped for. "Fair enough," she allowed. "And I guarantee that the people will join us." She grinned. "We English have no fondness for the French."  
  
"Good." Jack sighed. "Is there no other way, or do I really have to resign myself to allying with the commodore?"  
  
"There's no other way," Anna said firmly. "Or at least, no other way that would succeed."  
  
"All right, then." Pushing back his chair, Jack stood up again and made his way to the door of his cabin. "We'll be back in Port Royal in about two days. It's only fifty miles from St. Catherine, after all." He reached for the doorknob, but turned back, a quizzical look on his face. "Anna, do you know how to use a pistol at all?"  
  
She flushed. "Don't you just aim and pull the trigger?" she blurted, hearing her voice in her ears and flushing even redder at the stupidity of her words.  
  
Jack shook his head, grinning. "You'll want to be learning, for when we take Port Royal back. I can get Annamaria to teach you." He laughed at the look of uncertainty on Anna's face. "Let me guess – you want to learn, but not from someone who's probably going to bite your head off if you forget anything." Anna nodded emphatically – he'd spoken her exact thoughts. "I can teach you, too, if you'd prefer that."  
  
"Absolutely!" exclaimed Anna, nodding vigorously. "I most definitely would!"  
  
Jack's smile broadened. "Good. Stand up, then." Anna blinked, confused, and Jack sighed. "It'd probably be best if you knew how to shoot by the time we come to Port Royal. And seeing as we only have two days, we'd best get started, eh?"  
  
"Oh. Right." Anna got up. "I – I don't have a pistol."  
  
"I have to say I'm glad of that. I don't trust you farther than I can throw you." Anna's eyes widened. "After two attempts on me life and one to take my ship, I don't see that I have much reason to trust you," Jack elaborated. "However, as it seems I must, I'll at least give you a pistol," he continued, going to a chest under one of the cabin's windows. He opened it, fished around for a minute or two, and emerged with a small wooden pistol. "Catch." He tossed it across the air between them, and Anna caught it smoothly. Jack came back to stand beside her, pulling his own pistol from his belt. "We'll start as my first instructor did – the parts. That's obviously the trigger, and this..."  
  
***  
  
"One day till we get there, I think!" Annamaria called to Zhao from her place at the wheel. The midget raised a hand in acknowledgement, and Annamaria turned her eyes back to the horizon. She had made no pretense of her opinion of Jack's latest idea – it was a cockamamie notion sure to get them all dangling from a rope – but Jack had not been inclined to listen to her on that count. She sighed. After years of sailing with the pirate captain, Annamaria knew when to press a point and when to hold her peace – and this was one of the latter times.  
  
Suddenly there was a loud bang from below the deck. Annamaria jumped a foot into the air and grabbed for the wheel to steady herself. "Hendrikson! Go down there and see what the hell just happened!" she bellowed, and the Dutchman leaped to obey. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm her nerves. She remembered with sudden, frightening clarity that the young girl prisoner had been alone with Jack in his cabin, and that sound had been far too much like a pistol shot for her comfort... She forced herself to be calm, to stop thinking that the crazy girl might have shot Jack. Her captain was a very good shot. He could take care of himself. But still...  
  
Her nerves were calmed when Hendrikson returned, looking perfectly normal. "What was that?" demanded Annamaria as the Dutchman drew near her post.  
  
Hendrikson bit back a grin. He was pretty sure that he knew what Annamaria's reaction would be, and he was quite looking forward to seeing it. "Captain Sparrow's teaching Miss Anna how to shoot." Having delivered his message, Hendrikson leaned back against the prow and watched the fireworks.  
  
They were more than satisfactory. Annamaria screeched "WHAT?" and gave the wheel a savage yank, mindless of the direction the Pearl was headed in. Hendrikson reached out and readjusted the wheel – Annamaria let go of it, picked up a small stone from the deck, and hurled it out into the water. She stopped herself from pounding her foot on the deck just in time, and another bang rang out, making her lurch, grab for the prow, and let loose a stream of obscenities, directed mainly at Jack, but with a few choice words spared for Anna. Hendrikson tilted his head to catch the vivid words, a half-grin on his face at Annamaria's temper.  
  
Finally she got herself under control and reached for the wheel again. "Ignore all that," she ordered Hendrikson. "It never happened." Her knuckles were white where she gripped the wheel – Hendrikson chortled under his breath. "You can go now." He made an exaggerated bow and obeyed. He couldn't wait to tell Gibbs about Annamaria's temper tantrum later today, some time when she wasn't around. 


	10. Return to Port Royal

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Ten  
  
"There!" Anna shielded her eyes with her left hand and pointed with her right. Jack, standing beside her, nodded. Anna couldn't tell whether it was with satisfaction at the speed the Pearl had made, or whether it was resignation at having to deal with her father again.  
  
She chose to believe it was satisfaction. "We're docking at whatever secret place you know of, am I right? Because the marines are going to be swarming this ship if you show your face in the docks in broad daylight. They know you on sight now. My father made sure of that."  
  
Jack winced. "Remind me to thank him for that, will you, love?" Anna grinned and nodded sweetly, which made Jack groan. He wheeled around and bellowed, "Head for the cove!" Annamaria, at the wheel, nodded in acknowledgement and shouted the order to the rest of the crew.  
  
Anna turned to ask what the cove was. She got as far as "What's the –" before a large, coarse, hot strip of black cloth descended neatly over her eyes. She gasped, wordless with shock, and tried to pull it off, but she felt someone tie a neat little knot at the back. "Part of me job," came Jack's very amused voice behind her. "No one but us pirates sees our spot. You savvy?"  
  
"It seems like I have no choice but to be savvy," Anna grumbled. This time it was Jack who laughed. Anna bit her lip, but it was no use – the ease with which she had been caught soon had her laughing too, so hard that she stepped back, lost her balance, and made a wild grab for the rail as she tipped over backwards. She missed the ship, but Jack quickly caught her arm and pulled her back into a standing position. "Thank you," Anna said, gasping a little as she got her breath back.  
  
"No trouble at all," Jack assured her, still laughing. "Just don't make a habit of that – you'll give me a heart attack."  
  
"What?" Anna asked, smiling.  
  
"Then I'll always have to be on hand to catch you."  
  
"You care so much about what happens to me?" teased Anna. But even though her words were light, something fluttered in her stomach that she was fairly sure had nothing to do with falling off a ship.  
  
For a moment Jack was silent. Then he said, "Oh, no, not at all," but his easy, bantering tone had an edge of uncertainty to it. He and Anna said nothing more as the Pearl made her way to the cove, and finally he coughed and left her standing by the prow. Anna heard him giving orders, and guessed he was headed to relieve Annamaria of her duties.  
  
What was that about? she wondered. The fluttery feeling returned as soon as she thought about it, and Anna decided she actually liked it. She bit her lip again, knowing she shouldn't be enjoying thoughts like that and that her sister would be scandalized. I don't care what she thinks, Anna thought suddenly, and was surprised to realize that it was true. I really don't care what she thinks of me. I'm going to live the way I want to live, and not the way I should. She sighed, satisfied, as she made her decision, and held onto the prow as the crew lowered the anchor and the Black Pearl stopped moving.  
  
She felt someone take her by the arm. "Come on," said Gibbs' voice. "We have to get into the city before you can take that blindfold off." Anna let the first mate lead her off the ship and guide her over the rocky ground. She had a vague sensation of passing over some hidden way, and then she heard the sounds of a city – people, animals, rumbling carts and creaking ships. Gibbs hastily untied her blindfold. It fell away from her face, and Anna blinked in the light, drinking in the sight of her home again. She looked around. Thomas' face had the same relief to be home that she was sure she had as well, and Elizabeth and Will looked like they'd been blessed with nothing short of a miracle. Little Kate was busily turning her blindfold into a shawl for her doll.  
  
Anna noticed, however, the absence of one person crucial to her plan. She spun on Gibbs. "Where's the governor?" she demanded, fixing him with a very intense stare.  
  
He fidgeted. "The captain left him on the ship with Annamaria and Zhao. They're too noticeable. He says we'll bring him once we're sure of safety here."  
  
Anna nodded tightly. "Then we'd best go about procuring some." She caught Thomas' eye, and he nodded back. "I'll return when we've persuaded Father."  
  
"You're that sure of him?" Gibbs asked in awe.  
  
"Completely," Anna lied, summoning up a smile from somewhere and following Thomas through the streets of Port Royal.  
  
The city was different, though. She noticed that now, and one glance at Thomas told her that he knew it too. The French couldn't possibly have gotten there that fast – could they have? She stopped a woman and asked, "What's going on here? I just arrived."  
  
There was pity in the woman's eyes. "Are you part of a new shipment of colonists?"  
  
"Yes," lied Thomas. "We both are. I'm her – cousin."  
  
"Well, you'd both be doing yourselves a favor if you turned around and found a ship to take you back to England. Them Frenchies have taken over. Just yesterday. They've taken the governor's mansion for theirs."  
  
"What about the commodore?" Thomas pressed, his eyes large with worry.  
  
"Oh, they haven't gotten to him yet, but they will soon. No, poor Commodore Norrington's safe now, but he won't be for long. I just hope the home country hears and comes quick enough to help us. I hope the governor and his family made it back safely."  
  
"I'm – sure they did." Anna dipped her head in thanks. "Thank you, mistress." The woman nodded and made her way past them. No sooner had she left them than Anna grabbed Thomas' arm and fairly dragged him after her through the streets. "We have to get to him soon!" she tossed over her shoulder by way of an explanation. "While the house is still safe!"  
  
Thanks to Anna's speed, they reached the house quickly. Anna let go of Thomas and pounded hard on the door. It opened slowly, and Elizabeth Norrington's frightened face peered out. She gasped with relief when she saw Anna and Thomas. "Oh, thank goodness!" she cried. "You're back!" She pulled the door open wider and herded them in. "We've all been –"  
  
"Elizabeth," Thomas interrupted. "I'm sorry, but it's urgent. Where is Father?"  
  
"Oh." Elizabeth furrowed her forehead in thought. "I believe he's in the study –" Anna and Thomas both shot off instantly in the direction of the commodore's study, leaving Elizabeth standing, somewhat confused, in the middle of the hall.  
  
***  
  
Commodore Norrington sat, slowly moving his pen across a piece of paper. "The situation here is critical," he said under his breath as he wrote the words. "The French launched a surprise attack a day ago. We attempted to hold them off, but we were caught surprised, and their fleet was superior to our cannons. They wasted no time in taking control. Please send aid to help recover the colony of Jamaica for England." Norrington paused for a moment before reluctantly signing his name without his title of commodore.  
  
He laid down his pen and shook sand over the letter to dry it. He was about ready to shake the sand back into its jar when he heard footsteps pounding toward his study. He reached for the letter to hide it – and sank back, stunned, into his chair as Anna and Thomas burst into the study. "Children," he managed before Anna threw herself at him and hugged him. Thomas was not long in following his sister's example. Norrington put his arms around them and held them tightly, staring in wonder at them. "How did you –" he finally started to ask. "What happened?"  
  
Anna looked at Thomas and took a deep breath. "The Mermaid was attacked. By pirates." At his look of horror, she hastened to add, "None of us were harmed. Only the ship was the Black Pearl, and its captain was –"  
  
"Jack Sparrow," Norrington finished heavily.  
  
"Captain Jack Sparrow," Anna corrected. "Father, we have a plan to get rid of the French. Listen to me. Jack's crew is here in Port Royal." Thomas, with incredible foresight, had moved behind Norrington's chair, and he now held his father down as Anna went on. "If the governor were to come back, the citizens would rally to him, wouldn't they?"  
  
"Yes," Norrington agreed.  
  
"That's what I thought. I told Jack that they would, if he brought us back. Now we need a safe place to keep the governor while we spread the word. I was hoping we could all stay here." Finished, Anna heaved a sigh and waited nervously for her father's verdict.  
  
"Well, of course," Norrington agreed. "All but the pirates –"  
  
"They must have a promise of protection before they'll bring Governor Swann into the city. And I do not want them harmed, Father."  
  
Norrington stared, aghast. "You're throwing in with them? Both of you?"  
  
"It's the only way to retake Port Royal!" Anna cried. "Please, Father! Would you rather we remain a French colony now?"  
  
Norrington sighed heavily, bitterly. "Very well. I shall not harm them."  
  
Thomas let his father go. "Thank you," Anna said quietly. "I'll go tell them." She slipped from the room, down the stairs, and back into the city streets. Wending her way through the crowd, she traced the path of her madcap dash through the city and back to the small nook where Gibbs waited. "Bring them in," she told him. "Tell Jack it's safe. Bring the governor back. But keep him hidden. I'll wait and lead you all to the house."  
  
Gibbs nodded and ran quickly back in the direction of the cove. Anna watched him go, swallowing hard. "First step accomplished," she muttered. "Second – we'll see how that goes."  
  
Author's Note: I'm so sorry I haven't posted this whole week! I had PSSA tests this week, and it was just hectic. So I do apologize, and more chapters are on the way! (And thank you to everyone who's reading this!) 


	11. The Pirate and the Commodore

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Eleven  
  
Anna took a secret delight in her sister's horrified face as she saw Anna at the head of a group of disreputable pirates. Elizabeth Norrington spluttered in most unladylike outrage as the Black Pearl's crew drew near the Norrington home, and when they got to the door, she barred the way. "I'm sorry," she said, white as a sheet and shaking from head to toe, "but this is a decent house, and you won't come in."  
  
Before Anna could do anything to stop him, Jack stepped from among his crew. They had put him in the middle, as he was the most noticeable, and Anna was caught between fear that someone would recognize him and amusement as he sauntered easily up to the door. Elizabeth trembled. Jack smiled. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, love," he said, and stuck out a foot to step into the house. "Savvy?"  
  
With a tiny gasp of nightmarish fright, Elizabeth Norrington let go of the doorknob and fainted.  
  
Not bothering to hide her grin, Anna nevertheless administered a blistering scolding as she shoved her way through the rest of the crew, the Turners, and Governor Swann to reach her sister and Jack. "What on earth were you thinking, Jack? She's never seen a pirate before in her life, and she's grown up on tales of you and your vile ways – what were you thinking, frightening her like that?" Continuing with various insults – most picked up from Annamaria and Jack – Anna quickly pushed open the door and dragged her sister out of the way as the pirates entered. "And now she'll be on edge for the rest of the time you're here, and who knows how long that'll be, and –"  
  
"You can shut up now," Jack informed her, a broad grin on his face.  
  
"I'll shut up when I bloody well want to, Captain Sparrow!" Anna yelled. An instant later, her eyes widened, and she clapped a hand to her mouth as though to take back the improper word she'd said within her father's hearing. Jack looked somewhat taken aback, but his amusement did not flag – in fact, it grew as Anna's silence became longer. Finally both of them burst out laughing. Anna took her hand down from her mouth, gasping with mirth, and laughed until her stomach ached. Then she subsided into sighs of amusement at herself, and shared a grin with Jack. "Come on," she said at last, shaking Elizabeth to bring her around. "I'll show you all the guest rooms."  
  
Elizabeth Norrington muttered indistinctly and opened her eyes. "What – what –" she tried to say, staring around with panic. "Not on the rug!" she moaned. "They'll get the rug dirty, and it came all the way from England..."  
  
"It's all right," Anna soothed. "I'm taking them to the guest rooms now." She helped her sister stand, and Elizabeth staggered up the stairs, refusing all offers of help and wincing whenever her dress brushed a pirate's clothes. Anna looked after her and sighed. "Not the most adaptable of creatures, my sister," she admitted, to chuckles from the Pearl's crew. "Let's go. This way."  
  
Mother will probably have a fit, thought Anna once most of the pirates were settled, at my putting them in the good guest rooms, but there you have it. At least I let Governor Swann and the Turners have the best rooms. "I think you two can share a room, all right?" she asked, looking at Gibbs and Cotton. "Gibbs, you seem to understand the parrot best, at least." At their nods, she opened the door to one of the last rooms left and let them in. Closing the door after them, Anna turned around to look for Jack, the only one she hadn't settled yet – and saw no one. The hall was empty. "Bloody hell," she muttered – it was one of Annamaria's favorite curses – and took off up the stairs. If she was right, there was one place Jack wouldn't be able to resist going, and she hated to think of what he'd been up to while she wasn't watching him.  
  
She was right. She could hear two distinct voices coming from the commodore's study. One had to be Jack's – it was teasing, but in an intentionally barbed way. The other was level and controlled, but defensive and very angry – her father. Wasting no more time than she already had, Anna shoved open the door. It slammed against the opposite wall, and both Norrington and Jack turned toward her.  
  
Anna composed her face to remove the anxiety she'd been feeling. "Jack, your room is ready. If you'll come...?" The words were polite, but the iron look in her eyes made it clear to all three of them that she was not asking a question. Jack decided to be prudent, and followed Anna out of the study. She shut the door neatly behind them and got halfway down the hall before she spun around and grabbed Jack by the coat. "Jack, I promised you safety, but are you really stupid enough to go testing it? My father hates you, as I'm sure you know, and if you get him angry enough, he will order you arrested. It's straining him even now to have a pirate crew in his house and say nothing! Please – do not ever try something like that again."  
  
Jack tilted his head to one side and looked carefully at her. As the silence grew, Anna's words throbbed in her ears, and she felt increasingly foolish as Jack still said nothing. Finally he spoke, but she almost wished he hadn't when she heard what he said. "You care so much about what happens to me?" he asked. Anna remembered the words – they were the ones she'd said after Jack had caught her while the Pearl moved into the cove. She bit her lip and looked down. If he was smiling, she couldn't stand to see it.  
  
"No," she said finally. "I care about what happens to this colony." She released his coat and would have turned, but Jack's next words froze her to her spot.  
  
"The truth now, love," he coaxed, and even though she couldn't have looked up at him, she knew he was in fact smiling. "Look at me and tell me the truth."  
  
Anna swallowed, and very slowly raised her eyes and looked at Jack. "All right," she whispered. "All right, I do care about what happens to you." Suddenly frightened of what she had admitted, Anna stepped back. "Good enough?"  
  
"For now," Jack agreed. "Lead the way."  
  
Anna turned gladly and nearly ran down the stairs to the last guest room, Jack following her at a leisurely pace. When they reached the room, she pushed the door open quickly and gave him a quick nod. "Go ahead," she said, standing by the door.  
  
"Thanks." Jack stepped over the threshold, but then he turned. With his most disarming smile, he reached out, caught Anna's hand, which lay on the doorknob, and gave it a quick kiss, so fast that Anna would have thought she'd imagined it if she hadn't known it had just happened. Jack bobbed his head to her and pulled the door shut, leaving Anna standing outside in the hallway, breathing fast and feeling both stunned and elated.  
  
***  
  
Lunch was quite an experience. After the pirates had gotten settled in, Thomas had delicately brought up the fact that all of them were very hungry. Mrs. Norrington had quickly had a meal for nine put together – the nine being the five Norringtons, the three Turners, and the governor. Anna had said, very carefully, that perhaps Thomas didn't just mean that the respectable people were hungry.  
  
"No pirate will eat at my table," said Commodore Norrington coldly.  
  
"What if they ate in the kitchen?" Thomas suggested glibly.  
  
Norrington glared at his son. "That's not the point!"  
  
"Do you intend them to starve?" asked Anna, struggling to keep her voice calm. This is taxing him already, she reminded herself. Don't ask too much of him. "They are our allies, Father. Their ship is a surprise to the French –they think they know about all the ships in Port Royal. We can't treat them like animals!"  
  
"What if," suggested Will, "we ate first, and they ate afterward?" He was plainly uneasy in the house of the man who wanted to marry his wife, and it showed, but he met the commodore's eyes unflinchingly. Elizabeth slipped her hand into his under the table, and he looked gratefully at her.  
  
"Then you wouldn't have to eat with them," Anna said quickly. "Would that work, Father?"  
  
Norrington looked as though he would very much have liked to die right then and not have to think about his predicament anymore, but he nodded. "It would."  
  
That's taken care of at least, thought Anna, relieved, and reached for the sausage platter.  
  
And at that moment, the door opened, and who should enter the dining room as calmly as possible but Jack Sparrow. Anna nearly dropped the sausages, and as she caught herself, she muttered a particularly vile oath, shocking herself with her inventiveness. "And just as we'd gotten it taken care of!" she groaned to herself.  
  
"Morning," Jack said cheerfully.  
  
"It's afternoon," replied Norrington, fixing Jack with a glare that would have reduced a lesser man to quivers and terror.  
  
"Of course," Jack conceded. "But being so late in the day and all, me and my crew are a bit peckish." His eyes fell on the platter of sausages. "And this all looks very good. Excuse me." Reaching gracefully around Elizabeth Norrington, Jack appropriated two sausages from her plate and bit off a piece of one. To the shocked stares of the Norringtons, Jack smiled innocently and bit off another piece. "Good food, Commodore," he congratulated Norrington.  
  
"Jack!" Anna hissed under her breath. "Remember what I told you!" He looked at her quickly, and his face fell as he remembered her warning about pushing the commodore too far. "I'm sure we can find something to feed you later," she said loud enough for the table to hear. "If you'll just be patient..."  
  
"If I must." Jack stepped around the table and headed for the door again. In the doorframe, he turned and grinned at Elizabeth Norrington. "Thanks for the sausages, love," he called to her before stepping out of the room. She fainted face first onto her plate, and Will smothered a hoot of laughter.  
  
***  
  
The pirates were fed much more promptly than they would have been had Jack not intruded, and with much better food as well. Anna got the impression that her father was bribing them to leave the respectable people alone – although she wasn't sure if she qualified as respectable anymore. She had, after all, spent time on a notorious pirate ship and made an agreement with an equally notorious pirate captain. And, worst of all, she sided with the pirates, defended them to Norrington. As she was doing now.  
  
"It's not entirely Jack's fault!" Anna argued behind the securely latched door of her father's study. "Granted, he shouldn't have come barging in to lunch – but we've kept them hungry all day! This is not the way to treat allies, Father!"  
  
"This is how I deal with pirates," Norrington snapped, turning away from Anna and standing at the window, looking down on Port Royal.  
  
Anna sighed. "I know. I know you hate this. But don't you hate the idea of a French occupation more? If this is what has to be done, let's do it right and properly!"  
  
"You do not know what you're asking. You're asking me to compromise my ideals. You're asking me to go against everything I've built up as part of my life, and cloaking it in proper behavior and courtesy. I cannot do that as thoroughly as you would like me to. I spent years chasing the man I now harbor in my house – do you think I can treat him like an honored guest?"  
  
"If you can find it in yourself to do the same for Will Turner, I think you can do it for Jack Sparrow." Captain Jack Sparrow, Anna amended silently in her head. She knew better than to give Jack his title in front of Norrington.  
  
Her father's back stiffened at the mention of Will's name. He said nothing.  
  
"Please? Try?" Anna pleaded. "You don't have to be the most effusive host ever born. Just don't be cold. Be civil. That's all I'm asking."  
  
He sighed heavily. "All right. I'll try. But I can make no promise."  
  
Anna came over to her father and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you so much, Father." Norrington turned finally and hugged her back, holding her tightly. "I never wanted to hurt you," she whispered, and repeated it to herself silently as her father hugged her for the first time since she'd gotten home. 


	12. Revolts and Dalliance

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Twelve  
  
"The French guards are everywhere, but mostly here, here, and here." Thomas pushed a pin into Commodore Norrington's map of Port Royal at each of the three places. "Those are their strongest points." He grinned fiendishly. "This one –" he poked the pin stuck through the site of the governor's residence "– also happens to be their powder magazine."  
  
Anna felt a fiendish grin that was the absolute twin of Thomas' creep onto her face. "Brother, you are evil," she chuckled.  
  
"Thank you," Thomas said, bowing to the company – the pirates, the Turners, and Anna. Governor Swann had chosen to spend the afternoon with the commodore. "So, if we can find a way to get into those three strongholds – most notably the powder magazine – we can strike a critical blow at the nucleus of their power here." He glanced apologetically at Will and Elizabeth. "The governor's house may be blown up," Thomas confessed. "Actually, it's more than likely that it will be."  
  
Elizabeth didn't miss a beat. "A house can be rebuilt, and much more easily than a colony retaken," she said at once.  
  
Will nodded as well. "Blow it up if you need to," he told Thomas. "Never much cared for the decor anyway."  
  
"Oh? And would you rather live in your shop, Mr. Turner?" Elizabeth teased.  
  
"Elizabeth! Keep your mind on business," Will scolded playfully.  
  
Jack leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely in front of him, elbows on the table, and resting his chin on his hands. "So what you're saying is that you need us to get in there." He cast a glance at his crew. "Us being we pirates. Or will the respectable citizens we're hazarding our lives for take any of the responsibilities on their shoulders?"  
  
A short uncomfortable silence fell. "It may seem like you're being used," Thomas said finally, "but it is logical. You are, of all of us, most used to this sort of thing."  
  
"Logic!" Jack dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Logic is for men who've nothing better to do than pore over the words of dead people. What I'm interested in is the actions of living people, and I'd like to know whether me and my crew will still be among them after this little revolution."  
  
Anna bit her lip, twisting her hands in the folds of her skirt. Every word of his made painful sense, and only served to widen the class gap between them. It had not been obvious at all on board the Black Pearl, but in Port Royal it grew increasingly obvious, not only that Jack was of a station far too lowly to even converse with people of her class, but that instinct was kicking in and she was treating him that way. It sent painful little twinges into her heart, but she could think of nothing to say.  
  
And then she had it, something so ridiculous and crazy that she knew it was perfect. "Jack, if what you want is for civilians to assist, I will be glad to come with your crew to blow up the governor's house."  
  
A shocked silence descended on the room at her words. Jack turned, very slowly and with one eyebrow raised, to look at her. Anna flushed in embarrassment, but she stood her ground. "You will need someone who knows how the house is structured."  
  
"Then let me go!" Will said quickly. "I have been living there for sixteen years, after all. And Anna may be needed –"  
  
"Will, the people of Port Royal know you," interrupted Anna. "You're one of them, and they'll listen to and obey you much more easily than they would me. And they have to rise against the French for this to work. No, you have to do that, and I can't."  
  
"But Anna –"  
  
"The fact is, Thomas, there's really nothing I can help with other than this. Think about it – I can't raise a crowd, I can't fight, and I can't make speeches. But I can sneak around and speak softly, and I do know how the layout of the house. Also, I have much less to lose than Will or Elizabeth, who would be the natural choices as guides." She stared at Thomas, willing him to understand. "And I want to help in whatever way I can. Jack is right – we're not taking enough of the danger on our own backs. I think this is a good solution."  
  
Before Thomas could protest, Jack spoke up. "If you're sure you know your way around –"  
  
"Positive," replied Anna, blessing Jack for his timing, perfect for once. "That's settled, then. Mind giving us the locations of the other two major stations?" Wordlessly, not quite understanding what had just happened so speedily, Thomas handed over the paper with his notes on the French occupation. "And – do you think, if the pirates take care of two of the stations, the citizens can handle the last?"  
  
"We'll make sure of it," Elizabeth promised. "It's the least we can do." Anna smiled at her. "And I think it would be best if we split up now, since we're all working on different things now. Jack, Anna, why don't you take your crew and set up your plans." Jack pushed back his chair and went for the door, Anna and the Pearl's crew following him.  
  
Once outside Norrington's study, Jack looked quizzically at Anna. "Where can we go that your worshipful father won't be offended by our presence?"  
  
Anna controlled the scowl that rose to her face at his less-than-agreeable words about the commodore. "We could go to my room," she suggested. "No one comes in there without my permission."  
  
"Suitable," Jack approved. "Lead the way."  
  
It was odd, having a notorious crew of pirates casting dubious glances around her room like respectable houseguests. Anna choked back a laugh as Gibbs, a confused line between his eyes, stared in puzzlement at the sword over her bed. She didn't tell him that it was her father's sword when he was a young midshipman working his way up through the ranks of the navy, and that she had played with it as a child, and that he had had it put up over her bed for her last birthday. She did catch Annamaria looking somewhat wistfully at her closet, which she had left ajar after dressing. "Sit anywhere, I don't care," Anna said, plopping down herself on the carpet. Annamaria quickly took the desk chair, and Jack seated himself on the bed, leaving the others to join Anna on the floor. Hendrikson tried to perch on the desk, but Anna's sharp inhale and glance told him quickly that no one touched the desk without permission from Anna, and he slipped off. Zhao, smart man that he was, had colonized Anna's footstool. Anna told herself firmly not to laugh at the fact that it made a perfectly sized chair for him.  
  
Once all were settled, Jack cleared his throat. "All right, here's my idea. We split up into two groups – which I will decide – and head for the two stations. The one at the powder magazine will of course be smaller, as the other one will have to do some fighting. We all agreed so far that it's a good idea?" Brief silence fell as everyone nodded their heads. It sounded perfectly reasonable to Anna.  
  
"Good. Here's the catch. Listen very carefully. The group at the other station does not act until the powder magazine has been blown up." Jack grinned at the confused looks on their faces. "That way, the Frenchies at the other station will be confused and uncertain – which is the perfect frame of mind for an enemy to be in. It also gives the powder magazine group a little time to come and help out the other group, so the odds aren't so long. I'm guessing that the whole city will hear or see the governor's house blow up, what with it being up on that hill and all, so it'll be an easy signal to recognize. We still agreed?" More nods. Anna stared openly at Jack, astonished. These were battle tactics she'd never dreamed of – but they would surely work. The lack of honor in them would make them entirely unexpected to the French. She grinned. "Excellent," said Jack, smiling himself. "I'll decide on the two groups later – you'll all know by tonight, I promise. Now, shall we stop colonizing Anna's room?"  
  
Anna looked, surprised, at Jack. "Picking up manners?" she asked, drawing guffaws from the crew.  
  
"Nah," Jack answered, shaking his head unashamedly and standing up. The rest of the crew followed him out of the door, leaving Anna sitting on the floor of her own room and feeling something of an idiot. She had just gotten to her feet when a thought struck her mind and made her sink back to the floor. The pirates would probably start looking around the house. Norrington had kept them quite separate from all rooms but their own, and naturally they would be curious. And with her luck – and theirs – Norrington would find them, and then wouldn't there be hell to pay! Anna scrambled to her feet and ran for the door – only to smash headfirst into something standing in it.  
  
She staggered back a few steps, her hand to her head, and sank onto her bed. Through the sting of a ringing head, she heard Jack's voice say, "If it's me disreputable crew you were rushing out to send back to their rooms, don't worry. I've already done it for you."  
  
"Thank you," she muttered, finally daring to look out of her eyes. "But not for a lump which I'm sure will develop on my head in less than a minute."  
  
Jack laughed. "You take things too seriously."  
  
Anna gave her head a last rub and looked up at him. "Make me laugh, then," she suggested. "Tell me a story. Make me laugh."  
  
"Is it that hard?" Jack stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, and took the desk chair.  
  
"With a cracked skull, I'm sure it will be," Anna returned. "Go ahead." She grinned at him. "I'm willing to try to laugh."  
  
"All right, then." Jack leaned forward in the chair and, propping his elbows on his knees, rested his chin on his folded hands. "This, love, is the tale of how Captain Jack Sparrow, infamous pirate and scallywag, single- handedly sacked the port of Nassau without firing a shot. It's one of me favorites."  
  
Anna chuckled in spite of herself. "And how much of it is true?"  
  
"Are you insulting me? Let me tell the story. You asked for it." Anna conceded with a grin and tilted her head. "This happened during my first year as captain of the Black Pearl. Now that was a bad year for us pirates, a very bad year. Frigates often surprised us in the midst of a siege and whaled the timber off our ships when all we were trying to do was make a dishonest living, and the worst of those frigates always sailed from Nassau port. I had plenty of experience with that lot as first mate, and when I became captain I told myself I was going to put an end to those frigate attacks. And I was going to do it and make a name for meself into the bargain, as well." Jack nodded knowingly, and Anna smothered a giggle at the wise look on his face.  
  
"So, in the spring of that year, I took the Pearl down right outside Nassau bay, and I told my crew the plan. I had a different crew then –" his face darkened for just an instant, but he regained his easy bantering voice so quickly Anna nearly thought she'd imagined it "– and they needed some persuading, but they agreed to the plan in the end. See, they thought we should do what we'd always done – sail to the port flying our pirate flag bravely and be beaten to death by one of those frigates. No, I knew what would happen if we went their way, and I had a better plan. It involved staying out of sight of Nassau proper for a while and waylaying a simple merchant ship. Luckily it had marines on board. So the Black Pearl sails into Nassau port a few weeks later, saucy as you please, and flying a bold British flag, with my men on deck dressed up as marines!"  
  
It worked. Anna burst out laughing. Ignoring the pain in her head, she clutched the bedpost and laughed until her stomach ached – and kept laughing.  
  
Looking far too pleased with himself to be legal, Jack went on. "I had given my crew strict orders. This was to establish ourselves under me, see – the Pearl was known and feared under the previous captain, but who was I? A nobody – not that I planned to stay one. So I told them, 'I don't care who threatens you – not likely that they will in these marine suits – but even if they do, don't fire a single shot. In fact, don't even carry pistols.' So none of us were armed at all. We docked and got off the ship, and then we scattered to all the ships in the harbor – most of which were frigates lying in wait for some unsuspecting pirate. Half of us went on board those frigates, and made our way below the decks and sabotaged the ships however we could. I remember I cut a nice big hole in the side of one and let the water come in. And there was one whose prisoners I freed. We all did whatever we could to make sure that those frigates would not sail soon again. I think Barbossa and his monkey even rigged something that would uproot the mainmast and the mizzenmast of the biggest ship there. I was quite proud of him.  
  
"Then we left the ships and looted whatever we could. Marine disguises are handy – you can get anywhere in them. We came away with a fortune each bulging in our pockets and our coats, and got back onto the Pearl quick enough."  
  
"What then?" Anna demanded, leaning forward.  
  
"Then, about a month later, we docked in Tortuga. Some barkeeper or another told me about these pirates who had landed in Nassau the month before. Said they had made every ship in the harbor unfit to go to sea, some permanently, and that there was a price on the head of their captain. Me." Jack stood up and bowed exaggeratedly. "And that is the tale of how I made a name for myself and sacked Nassau port without firing a shot."  
  
Anna grinned and clapped. "Wonderful!" she praised. "I should write it down so I won't forget."  
  
"No, don't do that, or some upstart'll be copying my techniques!" Jack warned.  
  
"All right. I won't, I promise." Anna kicked off her shoes and swung her legs up onto the bed. "Any more stories to tell?"  
  
"Well, let's see..." Jack cocked his head and stared out the window. "No, I think I'm told out for the day."  
  
Anna suddenly realized that she had opened her mouth and was letting loose a gigantic yawn. "Me too," she admitted. "I think I should rest."  
  
"Good idea." Jack turned to the door, then back around to face her. "You have my apologies for your head."  
  
"It's fine," she assured him. "You cured it." The pain chose this moment to return in a throbbing burst that left her clutching her head and muttering Annamaria's favorite oath.  
  
"Very fine, I'm sure," Jack laughed. Anna didn't hear his footsteps coming close to her, didn't see him until her eyes fell on his booted feet by the bed. She looked up, startled, but he smiled calmly. "Relax, love." A little dubiously, Anna sat up and leaned against the bedpost as Jack carefully massaged the bump on her head. She winced once when he pressed it too hard.  
  
Somewhere along the line, she became subconsciously aware that his fingers were no longer consigning themselves to the lump on her head, that they were straying into her hair. Anna sighed and closed her eyes, banishing the misgivings that rose into her mind. So she didn't see Jack lean closer, and was somehow hardly surprised when she felt his lips brush hers, as lightly as a feather. She had one last flare of uneasiness before she realized through the haze of delight that she was kissing him back, and then all her misgivings fled in the face of the pure happiness of the moment. She put her arms around his neck and smiled against his mouth.  
  
Then he stepped back, and he wasn't kissing her anymore. Anna's arms fell limply to her sides. Jack looked surprised at what had just happened – he glanced out the window once before looking back at her. "Apologies," he said. "Not quite sure how that – I don't really know –"  
  
Anna grinned in spite of herself. "You know, you're very endearing when you're confused," she told him.  
  
"What?" Jack blinked. "You're not sorry, then? You are a respectable citizen, after all. Most respectable citizens are."  
  
Anna laughed. "I'm not entirely respectable, Captain Sparrow, which fault I think I must lay at your door. So you'd better reap the fruits of what you've sown, and kiss me again. Savvy?"  
  
Jack raised his eyebrows, and Anna saw a glint in his eye that made her shiver with happiness. "If you say so." In two strides, he was standing next to her and kissing her again, and this time he didn't stop after one kiss.  
  
Anna was thrilled. 


	13. Kisses and Confidences

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Thirteen  
  
That is, Anna was thrilled until she heard the doorknob turn. Instantly, with the adrenaline rush that comes only to the very desperate, she pulled away from Jack and sat down hard on the bed. Luckily, Jack was very skilled at adapting to inauspicious circumstances, and he had himself in the desk chair only a moment after Commodore Norrington had stepped into the room. Anna was intensely grateful for her father's dislike of Jack, because he looked at the pirate first, giving his daughter a few moments to collect her thoughts. "If you're finished talking," Norrington said, while Anna took deep breaths to regain control of herself, "I would like to speak with my daughter."  
  
"Of course," Jack answered easily. "Will you be wanting privacy, then?"  
  
"Quite," confirmed Norrington coolly. "Please excuse us, Mr. Sparrow."  
  
Anna had to choke back a giggle at the tragic look on Jack's face. "Is it that bloody hard to remember the 'Captain'?" he groaned on his way to the door. "Is it really that hard..." His voice faded after he shut the door, and Anna turned her laugh into a cough when her father's eyes fell on her.  
  
Norrington looked away when she looked back. Instead, he turned his eyes to the window, staring out at the bay and saying nothing. Finally Anna broke the silence. "Father, what did you want to talk to me about?" she asked, standing up.  
  
With a sigh, Norrington looked back at her. "I'm – not sure, anymore," he admitted. "You are not the daughter I know. In such a short time, I don't even know what to say to you, and I don't like that."  
  
"You mean, you don't like that I like the pirates," Anna whispered.  
  
Norrington flinched as she put it in such bald terms, but he nodded. "That too. Anna, I have spent my entire career trying to put an end to them. They are a plague to any kind of sea travel – you name it, pirates have made it their purpose to hinder it. I thought that my children were safe from any possible fondness for such creatures, and now you laugh with them, joke with them, invite them like childhood friends into the house – can you understand what I'm trying to say, Anna?"  
  
She nodded too. "You feel like I've betrayed you," she finished for him, and her throat tightened as Norrington nodded for the second time. "Believe me, Father, it's not any fault of yours! And if it's any comfort to you, I hated them at first – hated them! But Jack could have killed us, and instead he let us all live. It's thanks to him that Thomas and I are alive today. For that, I owe him my gratitude, if nothing else. But I like them for more than that. I like them because they are –"  
  
"Anna, please." Norrington held up his hand to silence her. "I respect your feelings, if not the people who receive them, but do not praise them to me." He fell silent for a painful moment, and then added, very softly, "I lost someone who was – very dear to me – to pirates, once. I never wanted that to happen again."  
  
"Father, you haven't lost me!" Anna protested. "You're just – sharing me, in a way. You're still my father. You're still the one who read me stories and taught me to play chess. Nothing changes that. Even though I've grown to honestly like the pirates, I still love you!" She threw her arms around Norrington and hugged him. "You haven't lost me, Father," she whispered into his coat shoulder, and hugged him tighter when she felt him hug her back. "This is something we're all going to have to live with," she added, more loudly.  
  
"Yes," Norrington agreed. He released her and looked down at her. "I am sorry, Anna, that I can't accept them as you wish – truly sorry."  
  
"I know," Anna replied. "I'm sorry too – but I understand. I do." She grinned wryly. "How could I not, growing up on tales of the vile pirate crews that used to plunder the Caribbean coast?" That drew a laugh from Norrington, and when he stepped out of the door, Anna did not feel like a complete betrayer of her father. Granted, she felt as though there were few things she could have done to hurt him more, but not as if she might as well kill him now.  
  
And somehow, the last person in the world she wanted to see at the moment was Jack, who, with his perfect sense of the worst timing in the world, came back into her room after Norrington had left. Anna sat back down on her bed and didn't look at Jack as she said, "Jack, could you – could I be alone for a little while?"  
  
Now she slanted a cautious glance at him through her eyelashes, and saw him tilt his head to one side. "You all right?" he asked.  
  
"Yes, I'm fine! I would just like to be alone." Something had gone horribly wrong between them. A minute ago, Anna could have said anything to him and not felt stupid. Now the simplest request in the world would have sounded to her like she was demanding the moon on a silver platter. She stared down at her hands, clenched tightly together in her lap. She saw Jack shrug, saw his booted feet turn and walk out of her room, saw the door close behind him.  
  
But it was only then, after he was gone, that Anna let herself bury her face in a pillow and cry.  
  
***  
  
Supper that night was a stilted affair, with Anna red-eyed, Norrington silent, and the Turners trying to maintain conversation. In fact, it was a downright miserable experience for all concerned, and they all made polite excuses to end the meal as soon as was decently possible. For the brief duration of supper, Anna picked at her food, fighting back more tears, and stared down at her plate. The one time her mother tried to coax her to eat more, Anna tried to smile – Elizabeth Turner thought it looked more like a grimace.  
  
She made it a point to be waiting for Anna when the girl went into her room after supper. "Anna, what's wrong?" she asked as soon as Anna stepped over the threshold.  
  
"Nothing," Anna lied, biting her lip and heading for the desk.  
  
Elizabeth sighed. "Anna, you're doing no one any favors if you keep it inside you and let it fester. Tell me! Is there – might there be something I could do to help?"  
  
"I doubt it." Anna sat down, her back to Elizabeth, and nearly choked with the effort to talk calmly through a threatening sob.  
  
"Well, why not tell me and let me be the judge of that?"  
  
It took Anna a long moment to bring herself to turn around and face Elizabeth. "I – Father doesn't like that I'm – friendly – with the pirates," she said finally.  
  
Elizabeth pulled Anna into an embrace. "I'm sorry," she soothed, stroking the girl's hair. Anna put her arms around Elizabeth and stifled the sob in her sleeve. "But that's not all, is it?"  
  
"Ye – no." Anna rested her chin on Elizabeth's shoulder. "I – I kissed Jack, this afternoon."  
  
She felt Elizabeth give a small start of surprise. "Well, Anna, you just don't believe in doing things halfway, do you?" she laughed weakly. Anna laughed weakly back and looked up at Elizabeth. "Well." The older woman sighed, trying to come up with an answer, a solution, for her friend. "Well, Anna," she said at last, "I can certainly see how that would upset you. But if you'd let me give you some advice, I would say to do what feels right to you. I know that that's often hard to do." Elizabeth smiled wryly. "But it is what will bring you the most happiness, in the end, doing what is right. Not 'best,' Anna, not 'correct.' 'Right.' You'll know what's right and what's best, and sometimes they aren't the same thing. But that's what I'd tell you."  
  
Anna nodded and sniffed. "Thank you." She hugged Elizabeth again.  
  
"And another piece of advice. Your father loves you very much, but if you live the way you think will please him most, you may not be pleasing yourself. And that's what I've come to understand – that you have to live in what way suits you. Does that help at all?"  
  
"Yes," Anna whispered. "Yes. It does."  
  
"Good." Elizabeth let go of Anna. "Do you want to be alone?"  
  
"Yes – I think so." Elizabeth nodded and quietly withdrew, leaving Anna to her thoughts.  
  
Anna drew a deep breath and lay down, curled up in a fetal position, on her bed. Somehow she felt better after talking to Elizabeth – she could breathe again, for one thing. And she felt less of a betrayer to Norrington than before. Anna kicked off her shoes and tugged impatiently at the lacing of her dress. Elizabeth knew what she was talking about – she had, after all, followed her own advice, and she was perfectly happy and content. Anna sighed and pulled the dress over her head, tugging loose a few hairpins in the process, and lay back down in her underclothes.  
  
"I should change into my nightgown," she muttered to herself. "Oh, hang it all, I can sleep just fine in a chemise!" Burrowing her head into her soft pillow, Anna relaxed beneath her covers and closed her eyes. Her last waking thought before she drifted off to sleep was of Jack, and of their kiss.  
  
She didn't feel guilty for thinking of him.  
  
***  
  
Her guilt stayed absolved the next morning, when she got up early to the perfect silence of the house. For a while Anna lay in bed, slowly waking herself up and listening to the quiet. When she decided that she could open her eyes, she did so, and went to the window in the bargain. The sun was bright golden on the thatched roofs of Port Royal. It looked like a storybook morning, all gold and blue and diamonds on the water. On impulse, Anna pushed the window open, climbed up onto the window ledge, and leaned out, basking in the warmth of the sun on her face. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back.  
  
Then the door opened, and someone gave the masculine version of a yelp. "Bloody hell, Anna, what do you think you're doing?" I know that voice, Anna thought dreamily, her eyes still closed. That's Jack. Footsteps came swiftly over to the window, and Anna opened her eyes as Jack took her hands and pulled her down. Then reality kicked in with a vengeance. That is Jack, she thought, suddenly blushing very red, and he kissed me yesterday, and I am in my chemise! She tried to pull her hands away and reach for her bed robe, but he held them. "What possessed you, you crazy girl?" he demanded. "What on earth did you think you were doing? You could've fallen out the window!"  
  
"Jack," she interrupted, "at least let me get a robe on before you keep interrogating me!"  
  
He raised his eyebrows. "Not bloody likely, after seeing you do a fool stunt like that."  
  
"Then lower your voice," suggested Anna, "or else Father will wake up and come in and see you with me in my underclothes, and that would not be good for either of us."  
  
Her words created silence for a moment, before Jack allowed himself to smile. "I know exactly what you mean, love," he said, letting go of her hands. "Get your robe."  
  
Extremely grateful for the dignity-preserving silk garment, Anna practically dived for it and tied it tight in front, wishing she'd been able to talk her sister and mother into making her chemises with a higher neckline. She'd never thought she was well-endowed around her chest as it was, and there was really no point in showing off what was barely there... And I'm babbling, she scolded, I'm mind-babbling! She turned back to face Jack. "Now why did you come into my room early in the morning?"  
  
"I thought we should talk," he said, sitting easily down in the desk chair.  
  
"About what?" asked Anna, sitting on her bed and pulling her knees up to her chest.  
  
"About what happened yesterday," Jack answered, surprised that she hadn't guessed.  
  
In fact, she had guessed. She just didn't want to discuss it. "Jack, there really isn't anything to talk about –"  
  
"Oh, of course not," he rejoined. "We only kissed, after all. Nothing important."  
  
Anna ran her hand distractedly through her tousled hair. "Jack, please –"  
  
"Please what? Go away and don't darken your respectable doorstep again?" He grinned. "I'd be much obliged to, only you invited me in, so it's on your head, whatever happens."  
  
"Do you pirates always do this sort of thing?" Anna demanded. "Can all of you twist things around so you're never at fault, and everyone else is always to blame?"  
  
"Tricks of the trade, love," he said calmly.  
  
"Well, Captain Sparrow, I'd appreciate it if for once you could stop being a pirate and be a person!"  
  
Jack looked amazed at her outburst. Anna felt amazed as well – she had not expected to come so close to shouting, and she lowered her voice, mindful of her own advice a minute ago. "It is not easy at all, being made to feel as though everything were 'on my head,' as you so aptly put it. I don't know if you've ever felt that way, but you do bring it on nearly everyone you talk to, Jack. And if you care enough about me to kiss me – twice – I'd hope you cared enough about me to put that impulse on hold for just a little while and really talk to me."  
  
Jack leaned back and took a deep breath. Anna took one too, but quietly, waiting for him to reply. When he said nothing, she prompted, "What did you want to talk about?"  
  
"About yesterday," he reminded her. "Just wondering a few things."  
  
"Such as...?"  
  
He finally looked back at her. "Such as, what the point of it was, and if it is or isn't likely to happen again." At her face, fighting against dismay, Jack laughed. "Don't worry, love, you're not that bad a kisser. You just need practice." Anna blushed, embarrassed. Why had Mother never told her about these kinds of conversations? Why? "I hope you realize that as a pirate my intentions toward you could never be more than dishonorable" – Anna didn't try to stop her smile – "but even honorable intentions would be difficult to carry out with your dear daddy breathing down all our necks and no doubt measuring them for nooses. So really what I want to know, Anna, is what the upshot of those kisses will be. What happens now that we've come this far?"  
  
"First," she said shakily, "what happens is that you tell me what, if anything, you feel for me, and I do the same. You first."  
  
He grinned again. It was a beautiful grin. "About you? I'm interested in going farther with you, Anna – but I wouldn't, if you didn't want to. I suppose your honor is safe as long as you're under your father's eagle eyes, though." He tilted the chair back on two legs. "Your turn."  
  
Anna coughed. "I – the same thing, I think." She looked up cautiously – he was watching her with teasing interest. "I – I did like the kissing, yesterday – I just don't know quite what else could happen. I don't even know exactly how I feel about you. But I think I am interested."  
  
"Good." Jack smiled lazily. "Come here, then."  
  
"What?" Anna's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You need a few lessons in kissing," he grinned, putting his head on one side. "But I'm fairly confident of your potential, once you have them. Come here."  
  
Her legs trembling, Anna slid off the bed and made the few steps between it and the desk to stand in front of Jack. Without standing, he reached up and brushed a hand lazily up behind her neck, pulling her face down to his.  
  
The lessons began. 


	14. The Mutiny Begins

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Fourteen  
  
Regardless of whether or not they had a future, it was all Anna and Jack could do to keep from holding hands and smiling foolishly at each other for the rest of the day. Anna had the uncomfortable feeling that her father saw, but she put the thought firmly from her mind. There were, she reasoned that evening, absentmindedly pouring gravy in her soup and trying to cut her chicken with a spoon, better things to contemplate...  
  
"Anna!" She started and blinked across the table at Thomas. "Are you even here, Anna?" asked her brother. "I'd wager you haven't been paying attention to anything since you woke up this morning!" Anna looked down quickly to hide her blush, but Thomas persisted. "As I was saying before I noticed your absence, Anna, Jack thinks tomorrow is as good a day as any to put our mutiny in motion. We all need to have a meeting after supper to determine our course of action." He cast a swift glance at the commodore, who was studiously eating, and Governor Swann, who had frozen mid-chew at the mention of Jack's name. "All of us," Thomas said pointedly.  
  
"Understood," Norrington replied, carving his chicken into miniscule pieces. "After supper." Mrs. Norrington sighed tragically, and Elizabeth Norrington quavered, "Thomas, surely you don't mean Mama and me, too?"  
  
Anna hid her amusement at watching Thomas fight back his grin. "I do. You need to know what's going to be happening – you're going to be part of it, after all." Elizabeth looked shocked, and Mrs. Norrington nearly fainted in her soup.  
  
Norrington was not happy about the pirates congregating in the dining room, but no other room was big enough for everyone. Anna saw him wince when Gibbs pulled up a chair without being asked, and when Annamaria strolled in and sat on the table, all chairs being occupied, Anna thought her father might well have a fit. But he kept control of himself – he just sat very rigidly throughout the meeting.  
  
Thomas unrolled the map of Port Royal and spread it out on the cleared table, holding it in place with a paperweight at each corner. "We're agreed, then, on the groups plan?" he asked, looking at everyone in turn. "Good. Jack, have you chosen the groups?"  
  
"I have," Jack answered. He sat back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember where he'd put his pirates. "Oh, yes – my group, which consists of me, Zhao, Hendrikson, Cotton, and Anna – will blow up the governor's house. Gibbs, you're leading the other group, which consists of everyone else and is going to the second French station." He looked at Thomas and the Turners. "You did say that your good townsfolk would handle the third station."  
  
"They will," Will promised, "or I'll know the reason why."  
  
"Good," Thomas said quickly, before Norrington could interrupt and demand what Anna's part in the plan was. "Governor Swann, you will come with me, Elizabeth, Will, and Father. Hopefully, when we announce that you're here, the citizens will mutiny and overthrow the French at the third main station. We will meet once the station has been taken at the governor's house, which will probably be decimated – however, it's a good site to meet, since everyone can find it. We will rally all three groups together and drive the French away."  
  
"That is an excellent plan," Jack interrupted, "but I have to ask you something, son – what are you planning to do about the French fleet in the harbor? And it's not going to involve the Pearl, lad, I promise you that. I'll risk my life, but not my ship."  
  
Anna thought Thomas' smile was so smug it should be illegal. "No need to put the Black Pearl in danger, Captain Sparrow. When we arrived back here, I went to visit Gillette as soon as I could. He's sent a message to the British fleet that was anchored secretly on the other side of the island, and it will arrive here tomorrow to cut off the French." Thomas looked around the table, smiling complacently at the astonished looks on the faces of everyone there. "So you see, we're perfectly safe. It's as certain as these things can be that we'll win."  
  
"Ah, nothing's certain," Jack said, "except for the fact that someday you'll die." Anna shivered. "But it sounds like a fine plan. One more question – how many of my crew are going to get a stretched neck as reward?"  
  
Dead silence fell in the room, silence that stretched on as Thomas said nothing. Finally Annamaria shoved herself off the table violently. "You promised us," she snapped, "that we would be in no danger, that we were safe!" She spun furiously on her heel and marched out of the room. At the doorway she paused and turned around. "Jack, come on. We should leave now, while we're still safe." Then she went on out the door, slamming it resoundingly behind her. The silence continued for long moments after she had left, her bitter words echoing in the room.  
  
Then Thomas spoke. "I can guarantee nothing," he said heavily, "but I will do my utmost to persuade them that you all deserve to be pardoned. I promise you that, at least, for what it's worth."  
  
"Right," said Jack. "We'll see what happens, then."  
  
"Thank you." Anna looked around in shock – the words had come from behind her. She stared, astounded, at her father. "Thank you," he repeated. Oh, please don't bait him now, Jack, she thought. You have no idea what it cost him to say that.  
  
Jack did not bait the commodore. He looked as astonished as Anna felt, but he said, "You're quite welcome." Anna's jaw hit the floor, and Jack grinned at her innocently.  
  
***  
  
Anna was awoken in the early morning just after dawn by a hand on her shoulder, shaking her none too gently. She opened her eyes blearily to pitch darkness, save for the single candle whose flame showed the person who had woken her to be Annamaria. "What ...?" Anna muttered, barely half- awake.  
  
"Get up. We need an early breakfast to start." Annamaria straightened up and waited for Anna to get out of bed, which she did – reluctantly. Anna reached for her robe, tying it tightly about her for warmth, and then followed Annamaria out of her room and down to the dining room, stumbling on the stairs as she followed the bobbing light of the candle.  
  
They made it downstairs quickly enough, and Anna made straight for the branch of lit candles on the table, where all the residents of the Norrington house were eating a silent meal of porridge and sausages. Anna helped herself to some food and ate, as silent as everyone else. An unspoken thought thrummed throughout the room and inside the mind of everyone: This could be the last meal I eat. Anna shivered, despite the warm silk of her robe and the hot juiciness of her sausage.  
  
Finally breakfast was finished. The would-be rebels held a council of war one last time, Thomas reviewing all three plans of action. Then Norrington led them all to his store of weapons, arming each pirate with an extra pistol or sword and giving the respectable citizens one each as well. The remaining weapons were concealed carefully in the women's large pockets beneath their skirts, which were easily accessible by a slit in the dress' side. "So we're prepared if some of the people of Port Royal have no weapons handy," Norrington explained. Anna watched her father with awe – this was what he had been born to do, command and lead battles. With a sudden sharp ache in her heart, she remembered that he was still due to be court-martialed in less than two months. She and Thomas might have brought back the saviors of the British colonies in the Caribbean, but they had failed their father. She fought back the sudden urge to throw her arms around him and cry.  
  
The arming finished, everyone proceeded quietly through the house until they came to the front door of the house. After breakfast and arming had been finished, the day was just about due to start – the sun was climbing high in the sky like a bird. Anna looked out of the window and felt something grip her heart tightly. It was suddenly hard to breathe. "This is it," she said quietly, but everyone heard her.  
  
Elizabeth Turner looked at Anna, and with a sudden ferocity reached out and hugged her. "I promise we'll see each other again," she whispered. "Don't think of the worst, and it won't happen." Anna's eyes stung with tears, and she returned Elizabeth's fierce hug. She squeezed her eyes shut against crying, but she heard the softly spoken farewells of Will and Thomas, Jack and Gibbs – Jack and Norrington? Anna let go of Elizabeth and craned her neck around. Improbable as it was, her father was clasping Jack's hand, and while he was not smiling, he was serious to the degree that Anna recognized as respect. Thank you, Father, she thought. When he let go of Jack's hand, she went to him and hugged him tightly. "I'll come back, Father," she promised. "I'll come back." Norrington said nothing, but his arms were trembling as he hugged her back.  
  
Then he released her. A quick glance at Will, a shaky smile for Thomas, and Anna's farewells were said.  
  
"Whether we come back from this or not," Will said, "we have done far more than is expected of us. We have done our duty."  
  
Norrington unlocked the doors and pushed them open.  
  
The rebels slipped out into the waking town. 


	15. The Plan in Motion

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Fifteen  
  
"This way!" Jack said quietly, lifting his arm into the air and waving it. The people he had designated as his group – Anna, Hendrikson, Cotton, and Zhao – all came over to the owner of the waving arm. As planned, they took the paved road up the hill toward the governor's house, moving soundlessly in the growing dawn.  
  
Anna fell into step beside Jack – she had been to the governor's house often to see Will and Elizabeth, so she had an excuse to be up front next to him. She glanced once or twice at Jack as they walked, laughing grimly inside her head for thinking of what possible future they could have when at any moment they might be caught by the French. At last she took the risk of speech. "Jack?" she whispered as softly as she could.  
  
"What?" he said, looking quickly at her before fastening his eyes on the road again.  
  
"What'll happen if they – if we get caught? If it doesn't work?"  
  
Jack considered that for a moment. "Probably all get hung, compliments of the French marines." He snorted. "The French are just as good as the English at hanging pirates – better, in fact, considering they're all bloody pirates themselves." Hendrikson gave a warning hiss to keep their voices down, and Jack fell silent. A chill crept over Anna at his words, a chill that had nothing to do with the early-morning dew.  
  
We just can't fail, then, she told herself firmly. That's all there is to it. We mustn't fail.  
  
Five more minutes of brisk walking brought them to the gates of the huge house. Anna heard Cotton's parrot give an appreciative squawk, and she grinned in spite of herself. "Not bad," Jack muttered, giving the house an appraising look, "not bad for land folks." Then he turned back to look at his reduced crew and motioned them into the low-growing shrubbery by the gates. "Anyone speak French?" he demanded, and was greeted by a row of shaking heads. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "Right, then, that complicates things. Windows aren't likely to be open."  
  
"What about the ice cellar?" Anna suggested. "The governor keeps an underground cellar to store ice in during the summer. There's a way from there that leads straight to the kitchen."  
  
"We'll do that, then," Jack said quickly. "Zhao, you're our lock genius. Get to work."  
  
The diminutive Zhao folded his arms and glared. "If someone could boost me up –" he said pointedly, his glare excoriating Jack for his thoughtlessness.  
  
Cotton got to his feet. "Up the rigging!" squawked the parrot, and Zhao obeyed, clambering onto Cotton's shoulders. The tall pirate walked carefully out in front of the gates, in plain view of the house, and Anna gnawed her nails to the quick as Zhao, teetering on his unsteady perch, slipped a thick pin out of his belt and slowly picked the lock of the large gate. At last he gave a cry of muted triumph and pushed cautiously on the gate. It swung open with only a tiny creak.  
  
"Hurry!" Jack hissed, leaping to his feet and racing through the gate. Hendrikson and Anna followed him, and Zhao climbed down from Cotton's shoulders and did likewise. Cotton came last, pulling the gate shut behind them with utmost care not to creak it.  
  
"Now where's that ice cellar?" asked Jack as soon as they were on the grounds. Anna walked quickly to the side of the house and flattened her back against it, sliding around the corner. The pirates, all flat against the wall to limit the possibility of being seen, followed her. Anna's heart thudded painfully in her chest, and her breathing was shallow and constricted. Don't get caught, she repeated over and over, a mantra as she searched. Don't get caught. Don't get caught, don't get caught, don't get caught, don't get – "Here it is!" she hissed, beckoning to the pirates. A wooden door lay at a low slant against the side of the house, and Anna gripped the iron ring handle on the door and pulled. With a creak, the door lifted up, and the pirates dived down into the ice cellar. Anna came last, pulling the door securely shut behind her.  
  
"It's bloody freezing down here!" complained Jack, rubbing his arms vigorously. "Let's find the door to the kitchen and get out of here!"  
  
It took Anna a while to find the door, since it had been a long time since she was seven and could sneak into the Swanns' kitchen to nab sweets, but soon enough memory took over. "This is it, I think," she whispered, and pushed at a section of the wooden wall that had boxes of vegetables shoved against it. The door creaked open. Zhao, being smallest, was the first to climb over the boxes and scout the situation while the others moved the boxes, and he quickly nodded to show it was safe. Cotton came through the door, then Jack, Hendrikson, and Anna.  
  
"Now for the powder magazine," Hendrikson whispered. "Captain, d'you think it could be in here?"  
  
Jack raised his eyebrows. "The kitchen? Where the food is kept? Impossible. Not even the Frogs would risk blowing up their food." Anna was familiar with the derogatory term for the French – her father used it on occasion. "No, it won't be here. Let's look around."  
  
They tried the dining room first, although Jack was right in insisting that it would not be in any useful room. So they bypassed the parlors and the hall, moving upstairs to the second floor. Perfunctory glances into the bedrooms, made with the utmost silence and caution, assured them that the gunpowder was not in the same room as the snoring French officers. "Elizabeth will throw a fit when she sees that Frenchman's boot marks on Kate's bed!" Anna whispered, forgetting that in all likelihood Elizabeth would not see anything from the house ever again. One glance from Jack reminded her of the fact, and she bit her lip, embarrassed.  
  
They met in the hall between rooms, exasperated and not a little worried. "So where is the damn stuff?" Jack snapped, his nerves fraying. Oh, how I wish I had some rum with me, he thought longingly. Just a little. It would calm me nerves. He moved his thoughts firmly back on track and looked at Anna. "You know your way around here. Where else could it be?"  
  
Anna racked her brain for a room they hadn't looked in. "The outhouse?" she suggested.  
  
"That's an extremely useful place, and liable to become quite damp," Jack pointed out.  
  
"Right, of course," Anna muttered, blushing. "Same with the ice cellar." She snapped her fingers suddenly. "The attic!" she hissed. "It's probably in the attic, where it's dry, and which you can't get to without going through the whole house!" She made for the stairs, the others in her wake, and unceremoniously threw open the attic door.  
  
Sure enough, the powder was there. Hendrikson, peering over her shoulder, breathed what sounded reverent enough to be an exceptionally vile Dutch oath, and the parrot squawked, "Buried treasure!"  
  
"Right as usual, Cotton," Jack said. "Who brought flint and steel?" he added, producing a long fuse from under his hat. He drew his knife and sliced it into long lengths, then laid an end of each piece inside a crate. Anna stood back against the wall, swallowing down her rising jubilation and watching.  
  
Hendrikson pulled his tinderbox from his pocket and withdrew two small rocks as Jack knotted all the loose fuse ends securely. He set them down as close to the door as they would go and backed away, his eyes riveted on Hendrikson. The Dutchman knelt down, poised to strike the rocks –  
  
And something – an arm – whipped around Anna's waist as a hand slapped over her mouth. At the same time, something cold and round and hard presented itself just below her chin, and the faint click that went with it told her that it was a pistol, cocked to fire into her jugular. She gave a muffled cry and kicked back as best she could at the attacker she could not see. Hendrikson froze, and Jack whirled around, his hand on his sword.  
  
From behind Anna a cold voice said in heavily accented English, "I vould advise you not to do zat, or she dies."  
  
Author's Note: I'm really sorry about such a short chapter after my long absence, but I thought this was a perfect end to the chapter. I'm working on Chapter Sixteen, and I will try to make it much longer – and I think it will come soon, too! Again, apologies! 


	16. Outcome

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Sixteen  
  
Anna froze as the cold accented voice spoke, her pulse beating wildly in her throat. Her eyes wide, she watched as Hendrikson slowly stood and slid the two rocks back into his pocket, and as Jack's hand uncurled from his sword hilt. _No,_ she thought, inwardly writhing in guilt and fear. _No, don't worry about me! Light the fuse!  
_  
"Good," said the voice of her French captor. "Good. Line up against ze wall." He shoved the pistol hard under Anna's chin, and she gasped inadvertently as the pistol muzzle forced her head roughly up.  
  
Jack's face was the most conflicted she had ever seen it. "Do it," he muttered to the others. "Go, you lubbers! Line up!" Anna shook her head as desperately as she could – she could hear the shifting of men behind her, and hear the faint click of pistols. They had the pirates neatly obeying them – they would find it easy to kill them.  
  
"You as well," ordered the one who held Anna. "Go."  
  
Jack caught Anna's eye for an instant, and she stiffened – instead of being anguished, as she would have expected, his eyes were steady and urgent. He glanced once, swiftly, at her captor's waist, and then back at the Frenchman. "I don't think I will, thanks," he said smoothly, as though he were chatting with a drunk at some tavern in Tortuga.  
  
The Frenchman's hands jerked with surprise on the pistol and Anna's mouth. "Vat?" he demanded.  
  
Again Jack glared at Anna and looked more pointedly at her captor's waist before he repeated himself, even more calmly than before. Anna tried to look, but the Frenchman's arm effectively cut off her line of vision. So she cautiously inched her fingers, relatively free within the pinioning circle of the Frenchman's arm, toward his waist. Close to it, her fingers touched a curve of smooth wood – another pistol. She forced herself not to smile – the Frenchman would have felt her mouth move – and curled her fingers around the pistol, her heart pounding.  
  
"You vill line up!" shouted the Frenchman. His fingers curled around the trigger of the pistol aimed at Anna's throat, and she stiffened, but she took advantage of his distraction to remove the pistol from his belt. She turned it by her side to aim between the Frenchman's planted feet, and fumbled with her thumb until she had it cocked.  
  
Once more Jack caught her eyes. This time she nodded imperceptibly and glanced back at her captor. A smile that had all the certainty in the world spread across his face, and he turned it on the Frenchman. "Son," he said charmingly, "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."  
  
"I do not geef a damn who you are!" raged the Frenchman. "Ve are going to –"  
  
Anna swallowed hard and pulled the trigger of the pistol.  
  
It went off somewhat higher than she had planned, whizzing barely inches below the Frenchman's male assets. That alone would have made him jump – combined with the pistol's recoil, it was enough to make him loosen his hold. Anna wrenched free and, head ducked, raced over to the wall as Jack's pistol flew into his hand. The other pirates pulled out their own pistols and ran to join Jack. Anna stopped Zhao in his tracks. "Give me your pistol!" she demanded. "Quick!"  
  
Zhao was not one to question orders. He instantly accepted the Frenchman's pistol in place of his own and pressed his pistol into Anna's hand. Anna hastily checked to see that it was loaded as she ducked to the fuse, still unlit. _One shot,_ she thought, aiming with greater care than she ever had before in her life._ One shot before they catch on and aim for me._  
  
She cocked the pistol, checked her aim one last time, and fired at the fuse. It caught, and flame began racing up the thin cord.  
  
"Jack!" Anna cried, struggling to control her elation. "Cotton, Zhao, Hendrikson! The fuse is lit! Get out of here, quick!" She dashed to the attic window, trying not to think about the furious Frenchmen aiming too late for her, and shoved at the window. It didn't budge, and she smashed Zhao's pistol into the glass. The windowpane shattered, and pieces of glass fell out onto the ground. Anna hit out the jagged remnants of the glass window, still using the pistol, and glanced at the fuse – it was almost halfway to the crates of gunpowder. _"HURRY!"_ she screamed at the pirates.  
  
Without looking down – she knew she would lose all her nerve if she did – Anna gripped the edges of the window and stepped onto the bottom edge, crouching in it. She took a breath, clenched her teeth –  
  
And then indescribable pain smashed into her right arm. She screamed in agony as something tiny and fast and blazing hot buried itself into her upper arm. The arm went numb, and she lost her grip on the window edge and slipped out of the window like a stone into water, falling head over heels toward the glass-strewn ground with her arm on fire and a screaming, screaming voice crying out in pain echoing in her ears.  
  
The collision with the ground jolted her out of the darkening haze she had been swimming helplessly in. Now both her right arm and her left side were hurting, and her head didn't feel too good either. Tears of pain welled in her eyes as the arm came back on fire, and Anna curled her body around it and shrieked in unbearable agony.  
  
Then something else hit the ground, and a voice she thought she knew spouted surprisingly eloquent curses, mostly about the pain of impact. Anna cracked her teary eyes open and stared at a tan face with black hair and a red cloth around it. She knew that face... "Jack!" she gasped, gritting her teeth with the effort of speaking.  
  
"Get up!" Jack told her. "Get up before the house explodes and takes us with it!"  
  
"Where are – the others –" Three more impacts in quick succession answered her question, and two voices instantly began swearing, dwelling on the same topic as Jack in two different languages.  
  
"Get up!" Jack's voice was harsh and strained with haste. "Oh, hold still," he said then, and his arms slid under Anna's neck and knees. He stood, carrying her against his chest, and she clung to his neck with her good arm and choked back the pain as his running bounced her right arm, although the fingers of her left hand clenched ever tighter around the collar of his shirt. Once the constant jolting was too much, and Anna buried her face in Jack's shoulder and screamed. His hand under her neck briefly stroked her sweat-soaked hair in comfort, but he did not stop running.  
  
It seemed an eternity, but was only a minute or so, before Jack finally stopped running. Anna was gasping with pain in his arms as Hendrikson, Cotton, and Zhao came panting up to them. "Are we far enough?" Hendrikson demanded. Anna turned her head and looked at him and past him to the governor's house.  
  
A ferocious sound tore the early morning air, and the governor's house exploded.  
  
Anna let out her breath in a heaving gasp as the fine house blew into pieces that were hurled high in the air, as the site where the house had been turned to orange space filled with flying debris, wood, and shingles. Her fingers unclenched from Jack's shirt, and he carefully pulled her closer.  
  
It was only when the flying debris had settled that the fiery pain in Anna's right arm returned. She gasped and choked back yet another scream. Jack quickly knelt down and laid her on the ground. "Anna," he said, his eyes wide with concern, "what happened, love?"  
  
"She's shot," Hendrikson said expressionlessly – it was his way of hiding emotions. "She got shot just before she jumped – I saw." Anna nodded to confirm his words and glanced at her right arm.  
  
"Keep to the code!" squawked Cotton's parrot, which had somehow managed to stay with them.  
  
Jack shot a glance of pure outrage at it. "Not this time, mate!" he snapped, an undercurrent of fury in his voice. When he turned to Anna, though, he was calm and spoke gently, although she heard his voice shaking slightly. "You've a bullet in your arm, and it's got to come out." She whimpered in anticipated pain. "Would you rather I cut off the arm?" he asked, and Anna bit hard on her lip and shook her head. "Good girl," Jack said approvingly. "Hendrikson, give her your bag." Hendrikson reached into his pocket, removed the flint and steel from a leather bag, and inserted it between Anna's teeth. "Bite that when it hurts," Jack instructed. He pulled his belt knife from its sheath on his belt and cut off the sleeve of his shirt with it, tearing the shirt in four pieces and wiping the knife carefully on the cleanest piece. "Be brave," he whispered, carefully probing the bloody part of her upper arm to find the bullet – when she gave a muffled cry, he nodded and gritted his teeth.  
  
Jack forced apart the cut in her flesh and inserted the knife.  
  
Anna screamed through the leather, her left hand convulsively clenching and unclenching as the tip of the knife sought the bullet in her arm. Hendrikson gripped and held her feet, so she couldn't thrash around, and Cotton pinned her good arm. There was nothing she could do but scream and, when she felt her throat grow raw, bite so hard on the leather bag that she thought she would bite clean through it. Jack's knife was ceaselessly seeking the bullet within her arm, and the sight of bright red blood gushing out of her with every movement of the blade did not encourage her.  
  
Then she saw the knife pry up a small black ball. It forced the bullet up out of her arm, and Jack plucked it free and hurled it away. He removed his knife and instantly grabbed one of the strips of his sleeve, wrapping it tightly around her profusely bleeding arm. The knot he tied was bitingly tight, and Anna gasped as he tightened it still further. He tied two more of the cloth strips around her arm, threw the last over his shoulder, and wiped his knife on the grass. Then he carefully lifted her back into his arms and cradled her gently with her face pressed against his shirt. Hendrikson removed the bag from between her teeth.  
  
Tears forced themselves out of Anna's eyes despite her valiant efforts to stop them from coming. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain in her arm and reached blindly with her good hand. "Jack," she whispered. Her hand brushed his shirt again, and she tangled her fingers in the cloth. Again she feverishly whispered his name.  
  
"Hush," he whispered, his hands gently stroking her hair. "Hush. You're going to be all right."  
  
"Jack," she breathed, fighting to keep the tears out of her voice. "It – hurts, so much..."  
  
He stood up carefully and rearranged his arms to hold her closer. "I know, love. Go to sleep, you won't feel it."  
  
"But it's morning –" she protested weakly.  
  
"Aye, and you've been shot," he replied, a faint trace of impatience creeping into his otherwise gentle voice. "Now go to sleep, savvy?"  
  
Anna smiled faintly. "Aye-aye, captain," she whispered. Her head drooped against his chest, and she welcomed the quiet black oblivion that softly engulfed her. 


	17. A New Plan

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Seventeen  
  
"Anna? Anna, wake up! Anna, you can wake up now." The voices were the first things Anna heard when she began to push aside her dreamless sleep, and they sounded like Will and Elizabeth's voices. Blearily Anna opened her eyes and became aware of a few things at once. The first was that she was in her own room – she recognized it instantly. The second was that the pain in her right arm was only a dull throbbing ache now, and not a roaring, blazing agony. And the third thought, which struggled slowly into her mind, was that since these were familiar faces and voices and places, their mutiny must not have gone too badly.  
  
"Oh, thank heavens, you're awake!" Elizabeth cried as Anna tried to sit up. "No, you should still lie down. You're not completely better yet." Anna made herself keep her eyes open and blinked to clear her vision. There were other people standing around her bed, she realized as her eyes flickered from face to face. Besides Will and Elizabeth, little Kate was there, dirty and looking utterly pleased at her condition. And Governor Swann was peering over his daughter's shoulder, looking a little confused. And there was her mother and sister, and Thomas, whose clothes were dark with sweat and dirt, and her father, whose face looked so stretched and tight that Anna thought it would rip if he strained it any further. She smiled bemusedly at them all, wondering who was missing. There was one face in particular that she would have thought would be here, but it wasn't...  
  
Then it hit her who was missing. Jack's name flew to her lips, and she just barely bit her words back. It would hurt her father no end if she swam up into consciousness and Jack was the first person she called out for. So she restrained her tongue and her curiosity and looked at the commodore. "Father," she said, smiling, and reached out to hug him.  
  
Norrington threw his arms around her and, in an unexpected display of emotions, hugged her so tightly that she thought she might break. He was careful not to jostle her arm which, Anna now noticed, was bound up in linen much cleaner than Jack's shirt had been. Careful in her turn, Anna gave him a one-armed hug. Then nothing would do but that she must hug Thomas, and then Elizabeth, and then Will, and gradually everyone standing around her bed, and it all ended in a burst of laughter at the absurd scramble for hugging rights.  
  
When they were all at ease about Anna's healing condition, she could restrain herself no longer and asked, "What happened after the house blew up? I didn't really see anything after that."  
  
"Oh," said Will knowingly. "Well, it was a fairly noticeable signal. We started work on the people at once. Kate went around banging on doors, and Thomas located a trumpet from God only knows where and started blaring away on it in the center of town – as if the explosion wasn't enough to wake people up! They came out of their houses, and we started telling them that Governor Swann was here."  
  
The governor in question fidgeted embarrassedly, but Elizabeth smiled fondly at him and continued. "Father was wonderful, actually. I don't quite know what happened, but he got up onto a water trough" – Governor Swann actually blushed – "and started yelling along with all of us. He won everyone over."  
  
"Oh, stop it, Elizabeth," muttered Governor Swann. His daughter's grin widened, but she didn't pick up the topic of his performance again.  
  
Thomas took up the thread of conversation this time. "And no sooner did we have the crowd ready to revolt, than the second group of pirates came into the square and announced that the French headquarters in the center of town was in utter chaos! So of course we lost no time in telling them that two of the three French stations in Port Royal were gone, and that it was up to all of us to do away with the third. They clamored to do that right away, so we all headed over there – they had the third station by the harbor."  
  
"We had to blow up a few ships in the process," Norrington added, looking regretful. "Only a few, though." It didn't sound as though his consolation did the commodore any good.  
  
"And once the smoke cleared from that station," Thomas finished proudly, "what should we see but three ships of the British navy! You remember Gillette had sent them a message. Well, the French were arriving on the site fairly quickly, and we had a hard time holding them off, but then our ships opened fire on them and blasted living hell out of them. Most of the civilians were safe," he added quickly. "Only three died – the rest got out of the way, and there were only twenty injuries. Astonishing, actually. So Port Royal is, once again, a British town." He beamed down at Anna.  
  
She smiled back, but then she remembered, again, that Jack was not there. Come to think of it, none of the pirates were at her bedside – not Hendrikson, not Cotton, not Gibbs, not even Annamaria. Their absence was surprising to her. "Thomas," she asked, carefully pushing herself up on her good arm, "where are the pirates? Are they in the house?"  
  
He paused, his face stricken. And then Anna knew, with a sudden cold horror, where they were. "Anna –" Thomas tried to say, swallowing. "They're pirates – the British navy came here –"  
  
Anna stared with large, unseeing eyes out of the window as Thomas tried in broken sentences to tell her what she already knew. They were arrested, jailed, maybe even already executed. Unbidden and unwanted, the image of Jack dangling by his neck from a gallows rose to her mind, and she gasped and covered her face with her left hand, as though she could banish the image from her mind by shutting her eyes. Her body shook with dry silent sobs.  
  
Finally she lifted her head. Her eyes were red, but her face was dry. "Where – exactly – are they?" she asked.  
  
"The – executions – have been postponed," Will said, as gently as possible. "Because your father's court-martial takes precedence."  
  
Anna's eyes shot open. In her curiosity and grief, she had utterly forgotten that, with officers of the navy in Port Royal, Norrington would not have to travel to England to be court-martialed. "And when is that?" she asked urgently.  
  
"In two hours," Will told her. "Anna, you should rest, you shouldn't be this excited, it's not good for you –"  
  
But Anna's mind, unutterably grateful for something other than Jack's execution to contemplate, was eagerly whirling. "Thomas, I need to talk to you," she interrupted, before Will could well-meaningly convince them all that what she really needed was sleep when her father's career and Jack's life were at stake. "Please."  
  
With a face full of misgivings, Thomas nodded. The others quietly withdrew, leaving brother and sister alone. Once the door was shut, Thomas said, "Anna, Will was right. You shouldn't be this worked up."  
  
"Thomas, do you expect me to lie here and sleep and not do a thing to help anyone?" she demanded incredulously.  
  
After a pause, Thomas sighed ruefully. "No, not really."  
  
Anna breathed a sigh of her own. "Good. We'll need to formulate our defense of Father. I wonder if we could be allowed to speak in his defense?"  
  
"I'll get the evidence," Thomas told her, standing up and making for the door. Anna forced herself, while he was gone, to think only of legal matters. Thinking of anything else would not do her any good right now.  
  
Nearly two hours later, Rear Admiral Corry was sitting at a bench staring out at the impromptu naval court before him. As the senior officer in charge of the British fleet in Port Royal, it was he who would have to try Commodore Norrington – a task which he most assuredly relished. He could recall with perfect vividness a certain incident when Norrington, as a young lieutenant, had arrived in Port Royal as the escort to the new governor and his young daughter. He had been full of fire and ready to sail out and search the seven seas for pirates – some incident during the crossing from England had set it off in him, Corry understood. Corry himself had been newly promoted to captain, and Norrington's incensed urges that piracy needed to be fully eradicated had irked him no end. "Are you trying to do my job for me, lieutenant?" he had finally snapped, and Norrington, his ill temper worn thin, had retorted, "I think I could do it better than you could, sir!" Corry had greatly enjoyed locking him up briefly for mutiny.  
  
And no less would he enjoy dismissing Norrington from the British Navy. Corry smiled, a smile that had nothing of warmth in it. He took his seat behind his judge's bench and pictured Norrington abjectly pleading to stay in the Navy. The thought made his harsh smile deepen.  
  
Well, perhaps Norrington would not plead. From all that Corry had heard, Norrington had toughened up thanks to his mad pirate crusading. And Corry had seen his face during the fight for Port Royal – a face of implacable granite. No, Norrington would not plead – but he would be close to it, very close to it, by the time Corry finished with him.  
  
The door to the room opened loudly, and Corry whirled, irritated at the loss of his fantasies. "What?" he snapped as an officer came into the room, shut the door, and snapped to attention.  
  
Lieutenant Reed, a young man newly transferred to Corry's command, said quickly, "There are two children here to see you, sir. Thomas and Anna Norrington."  
  
_"What?"_ Corry said again, standing up and shoving back his chair. "Reed, this is no time to play games! Send them out!"  
  
"Aye-aye, sir," Reed said, saluting smartly. He made a crisp turn and opened the door to leave the room.  
  
On the other side of the door, Anna and Thomas seized the opportunity.  
  
Reed stumbled back in surprise as Thomas brusquely shoved his way past the lieutenant and into the room, Anna following on his heels. The bewildered Reed tried to herd them back out, but Thomas was too quick, and Reed was enough of a gentleman not to shove a lady – even if she was only sixteen. Thomas walked quickly to Corry, nodded briefly, and spoke. "Admiral Corry, I have been studying my father's case for quite some time," he said calmly, his face expressionless. He and Anna had agreed that they would have a better chance if Thomas, not his sister, proposed to be Norrington's lawyer. "I have heard that he has no lawyer to argue his case as yet."  
  
"That is correct," snapped Corry. "Boy, what are you getting at? Dispense with the formalities and come to the point."  
  
Thomas inclined his head. "Very well, sir. I believe every man has the right to be defended at a court-martial, is that not so?"  
  
"It is," Corry grumbled.  
  
"Then, as I am acquainted with the case, I would like to have that position."  
  
Anna held her breath, watching just out of Reed's reach as Corry's round face grew absolutely florid with rage. "You?" Corry finally demanded. "_You_, boy? You're barely out of childhood, and you presume to want to defend a naval officer?"  
  
"I have the right," said Thomas, implacable, "and I have read the case." His face was as bland as bad pudding – his eyes, the set of his face, the stillness of his body all betrayed no emotion.  
  
Corry sat back down with a loud thump. "Fine!" he spat, sounding for all the world like the child he'd called Thomas. "Very well."  
  
"There is one more thing," Thomas said smoothly. "My sister is my assistant and clerk. She too must accompany me."  
  
Anna smothered a most childish giggle at Corry's face, now positively purple, and curtseyed. "I am somewhat acquainted with the case as well, sir," she said passively.  
  
Corry slammed his fist down on the table in front of him. "Very well!" he snarled. "Now get out of my sight! You have what you want, now go!" Thomas executed a smooth bow and left, Anna following him demurely. Lieutenant Reed took one look at his superior, seething with rage across the room, and prudently withdrew as well.  
  
Rear Admiral Corry picked up an inkwell that lay on his table and hurled it at the wall. It smashed, and the ink ran down the wall and onto the floor, staining the wallpaper and the floorboards black. It relieved some of his fury, but not much. "Damn it," he swore, hurling himself out of his chair and pacing the room. "Damn, damn, damn it!"  
  
Outside the room, Anna and Thomas gave in to their impulses as well – and laughed.


	18. The CourtMartial

The Commodore's Daughter  
  
Chapter Eighteen  
  
The court-martial was convening. From their position close to the front of the room, Anna and Thomas saw the two other men who would judge Norrington come into the room and take up seats on either side of Rear Admiral Corry. "Who are they?" Anna whispered.  
  
Thomas squinted at their faces. "The one on the left, the youngest one, is Captain Stonebush," he whispered, "promoted six years ago and before now just patrolling the more far-away Caribbean islands." Anna nodded – Stonebush certainly looked more tolerant than Corry. "And the other one is Captain Wilkinson," Thomas went on, "who was in Europe fighting Napoleon until now." Anna swallowed. Stonebush looked like the only one who might possibly be tolerant of Norrington during the court-martial. The other two looked ready to convict him on the spot. Then again, maybe Wilkinson just looked that way from fighting in Europe.  
  
There was no counsel for the prosecution – the judges would merely question the witnesses, view the evidence, and then vote. It had been by sheer good timing on Anna and Thomas' parts that there was a counsel for the defense. Anna clenched her hands in her lap, forcing herself not to fidget, to look adult and mature.  
  
"Call in Commodore Norrington," said Corry loudly from the front of the room as the witnesses shuffled in. Anna turned around to grin weakly at Gillette, when the doors opened and Norrington walked in – and Anna wanted to cry with pride. He had dressed in full naval uniform, wig and all, his buttons shiny on his freshly cleaned coat. The sword that Will Turner had made for him hung easily at his side. Norrington looked every inch the ideal naval officer, and Anna hoped wildly that this might make an impression on Stonebridge and Wilkinson.  
  
"Rear Admiral Corry, Captain Wilkinson, Captain Stonebridge – good day," Norrington said politely, inclining his head just slightly.  
  
"Your sword, Commodore," Corry cut in abruptly. Norrington removed the sheath from his belt and placed it on the table in front of the judges. "Be seated," said Corry.  
  
Norrington turned to the table for the defense – and stared for an instant in goggle-eyed shock to find his children there. "Come on," Anna mouthed to him. Norrington hastily patched together his composure and, with only a slight jerk in his step, walked to the table and sat.  
  
Once he was there, however, he whispered fiercely, "What are you two doing? You shouldn't be here, you should go –"  
  
"By the authority I hold as an admiral of the King's Navy," Corry intoned, "this court-martial has now begun. Commodore James Norrington, you stand accused of smuggling goods unpaid for on your last voyage to England aboard the ship Mercury. If ruled guilty, you shall be stripped of your rank." Corry turned to face the witnesses. "Will the first witness please step forward." He consulted a list briefly, then looked up and added, "Josiah Crewe, dockyard worker."  
  
A small scruffy man shuffled forward to stand before the judges. "Mr. Crewe," Corry said, "you were one of the workers who loaded the ship Mercury when it set sail for England on Commodore Norrington's last trip, were you not?"  
  
"Aye," answered Crewe, shifting his cap back and forth from hand to hand. "That I was."  
  
"And you specifically loaded the salable cargo that Mercury carried, did you not?"  
  
"Aye."  
  
"Would you please tell the judges if you loaded anything that seemed out of place?"  
  
Crewe furrowed his brows in thought. "Well, I do seem to recall a large box. 'Twas not that heavy, sirs, I remember that...and it was nailed shut fairly tight, sirs."  
  
Corry looked at Thomas with a gleam of triumph in his eyes. "Can you refute this, counsel?" he demanded.  
  
Anna raked her eyes down the Mercury's inventory. When she found what she was looking for, she shoved the list over to Thomas, her finger tapping one item insistently. Thomas got to his feet, list in hand. "Indeed I can, admiral. I have here with me the complete list of items that the Mercury carried with her on Commodore Norrington's voyage, and I believe that the item Mr. Crewe has described was a case of cotton – lighter than usual because of the properties of cotton and nailed shut so that none could escape. Cotton is precious to England, sirs, especially since it is hard to produce in the mother country – as a good English citizen, Commodore Norrington would know this, and would take extra precautions to make sure that all shipped cotton arrived in England." He sat back down and shared a grin with Anna. Norrington sat between them, blinking a little and looking in astonishment at them both.  
  
"Mr. Crewe," asked Stonebush, "do you agree that this case you mentioned could have been cotton?"  
  
Crewe scratched his chin. "Aye, sir. Could have been. I never loaded cotton before, sir, I wouldn't know, but what the lad – er, the counsel for the defense – said makes sense."  
  
"And did you see or load anything else odd?" Corry asked quickly.  
  
"No, sirs, nothing as I can recall. I do believe I could tell what the other things I loaded was, and none of them was illegal, sirs." Crewe seemed unsure if he had done right or not. Anna reassured him with a grateful smile.  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Crewe," Corry said, in a voice that sounded anything but grateful. "You may stand down."  
  
Anna let out her breath in a gush of air that went unheard as Crewe sat down. It had begun.  
  
There followed more witnesses: a young lieutenant from the Mercury who staunchly declared his belief that Commodore Norrington would never go against the law when he had spent his whole life pursuing those who were outside it, a grizzled seaman who swore that he had seen Norrington secretly stashing some mysterious crates into the hold ("Do you think we can get around that, Anna?" Thomas whispered, worried), and another sailor who grudgingly acknowledged that it was possible to hide cargo on the Mercury. There were also two letters. One was sent by the factor who had arranged the sale of the Mercury's cargo, who, Anna hoped, would become an impossibly rich and happy man – his enclosure of his detailed lists of the ship's cargo and the sale of all of it was practically irrefutable evidence, as was his testimony to Norrington's worth.  
  
The other letter was from a woman who, believing him guilty, had written of her purchase of silver household items from Norrington directly. Thomas nearly panicked on that one, but Anna managed to unearth a hastily scribbled addition to the cargo list, as well as a letter from a friend of Norrington's, a well-known silversmith in Port Royal who had asked Norrington at the last minute if he had room for the smith's new pieces. The smith had also asked Norrington, as a friend, to see to their sale himself. Thomas breathed a sigh of relief when Anna triumphantly held up the letter and note, and Anna laughed up her sleeve as Thomas proceeded with an audible note of assurance in his voice to refute the woman's attempt at slander. By trying to damn Norrington, the woman who had written the letter had not only helped them further prove their father's worth, she had given an excuse for the grizzled sailor's testimony, which had been the most troubling piece of evidence. Anna smiled at her father, her hopes high for an acquittal.  
  
The last witness was Gillette, and he, as Anna had expected and trusted, swore repeatedly that Norrington was a good man and had never done anything in his career to merit being stripped of his hard-earned rank. In fact, Anna heard him mutter on his way back to his seat, "What he deserves is a promotion." She was glad that Gillette had not said that before the judges and possibly angered them, but she was also glad that he'd thought it.  
  
Corry, face red and jowls quivering, got to his feet after Gillette sat down. "Will the accused and the counsel for the defense please leave the room." It was not a question, but Anna scarcely minded the order – the furious look on the Rear Admiral's face was worth it. With a secret smile, she gathered up the papers that, in the course of the court-martial, had been strewn over the table, put them back into the leather portfolio she'd held them in, and stood up. Thomas inconspicuously tugged at Norrington's arm, and the commodore rose and followed his children from the room. The heavy door made a slight boom as it closed behind them – Anna heard a key turn in the lock. She was suddenly reminded of being locked in the Black Pearl's hold, and from one look at Thomas' face she could tell that he had remembered the same experience.  
  
Then her mind was jolted out of the past as Norrington suddenly spoke. "What on earth possessed the two of you to come down here and – and –" For once in his life, Norrington was without words.  
  
Anna swallowed and looked up at him. "Father, you shouldn't be so surprised," she said mildly. "We have, after all, been studying your case since you told us about this."  
  
"Yes, but that's an entirely different thing than coming here to be my defense!" Norrington answered. "I didn't want any of you to have to see this! No children should see their father treated so." He sighed heavily and leaned against the door. "And that Corry, of all men, should be a judge..."  
  
"Why does he hate you so much?" Thomas asked, curious. "We could tell when we came in to present ourselves as your defense."  
  
Norrington's head snapped up, and he stared with wide eyes at them. "You came here – and braved Corry – to be my counsels for defense?"  
  
"It's no more different than interrogating a pirate who wants to do something else," Anna remarked offhandedly. She smiled up at Norrington and added, "We are your children, after all."  
  
Then she stared, amazed, as for the first time in her life, Anna saw Norrington's eyes suddenly grow bright with tears. "Father!" she cried, now very shaken. Norrington simply did not cry – that was a fact you could wager your life on. "Father, are you all right –" Before she could finish her sentence, Norrington had reached out and swept her and Thomas both up in the fiercest hug she had ever gotten from him. He didn't say anything, but Anna could feel his efforts not to cry, and she stayed silent too. She reached up and hugged him back, closing her eyes against the tears that suddenly threatened to leak out.  
  
In the back of her mind Anna heard the door unlock. It seemed that Norrington heard it too, for he released his children and surreptitiously wiped his eyes as the door opened. A man in navy uniform, presumably the one who had locked the door behind them, ushered the three of them in.  
  
Anna's heart began to flutter. A naval officer's daughter, she knew the procedure for announcing the guilt of innocence of a court-martialed officer. If judged innocent, his sword would be placed on the judges' table with the hilt facing the accused. If judged guilty, the sword blade would face the man. As she entered, her eyes sought the judges' table, her heart thumping wildly, so loud she could have sworn they could hear her in England...  
  
The hilt faced Norrington.  
  
Anna could not help herself. She let out a whoop of glee and threw her arms around her father again, her feet lifting off the floor and kicking around as though she were dancing. Thomas sagged, white-faced with relief, and then grabbed Norrington as well in another embrace. Anna looked at her father and saw his face alight like it had not been since the Mercury returned. His eyes were bright, and his smile was like an exuberant child. He pulled Anna and Thomas to him, and he laughed. Anna had rarely in her life heard her father laugh, and the sound fell like a blessing on her ears.  
  
The formalities were over quickly. A grudging and plainly outraged Corry mumbled the words confirming the acquittal as fast as he could, and Stonebush presented Norrington with his sword again, a spark of relief in the captain's eyes. Anna was pleased that she had judged him right, but she was hard put to care about anyone other than Norrington at the moment. They practically flew out of the room, arms linked, all three with huge smiles on their faces.  
  
They had made it out of the building before Anna remembered Jack. Cold fear gripped her all over, and she stopped, frozen, and clutched at Norrington's arm. "Father!" she gasped. "Father, I forgot – the pirates, they're going to be hung!"  
  
The smile faded from Norrington's face, and he looked down at his daughter with unfathomable sadness in his eyes. "Anna, they're pirates –" he tried, not entirely believing his past, never-fail excuse himself.  
  
She would have none of it. "And they helped save us all!" she protested. "Without them we would never have been able to win the colony back!" Angry tears started in her eyes – every moment they stood arguing was a moment to save Jack that was wasted. "Please," she begged in little more than a whisper.  
  
Norrington was unprepared for the emotions that washed over him. First was his wish to help his daughter – she had helped him in a way that went far past filial duty – followed by acknowledgement that she was right. The citizens on their own would never have worked up the courage to overthrow the French, and no one could deny that it had been the pirates' careless bravery that had carried the day. And lastly, unbelievably, Norrington found within himself a regret that they should die. They were lawless, yes, and they stole whatever they thought they could get away with – but besides that, they were brave, steadfast, loyal. They had pledged themselves to a cause that they could only lose in aiding. In fact, Norrington admitted only partially unwillingly, they had many qualities that he himself had striven to attain.  
  
And Sparrow cared about Anna, he added to himself, far more than Norrington would have liked, but there it was. And, more than that and perhaps more importantly, Anna cared about Sparrow. He, Commodore Norrington, had the power to stop the executions of the brave and lawless pirates, and his beloved daughter would never forgive him if he did not try.  
  
Norrington closed his eyes for a moment, and gritted his teeth. What he was about to do contradicted nearly every moral fiber in his body – but it felt right to him. For some obscure reason he could not understand, it felt right.  
  
He turned to Anna. "Where are they?"  
  
Anna's eyes brightened, and her breath came in and out as gasps of shocked relief. "Probably the jail, or being taken to the square," she breathed. "Will said the executions were postponed – because of your court-martial."  
  
Norrington set his jaw. He could not believe what he was doing. Perhaps I'm going mad, he thought dryly. "Let's go, then," he said, and started down the street to the public square.  
  
Anna glanced at a startled Thomas, surprised herself – then snatched her unwieldy skirts up in both her hands and ran after Norrington, her brother on her heels.

_Author's Note: Okay, I unreservedly apologize for taking this long! I've got the next chapter already written, though, so I'll post it as soon as this one gets up. Many many apologies again!_


	19. The End

The Commodore's Daughter

Chapter Nineteen

"Bloody hell," Jack muttered. It had happened again. His hands were bound and he was being marched through a crowd of militant Englishmen to certain – and unpleasant – death.

His life was getting downright predictable.

Of course, an unwanted addition to the by-now familiar scenario was the presence of his crew behind him. Unwanted for two reasons – if they were with him, that meant that there would surely be no rescue, and also because he didn't want them to die. Just because he was fool enough to help people who wanted him dead was no reason to have dragged his fellow pirates to the gallows.

Jack leaned back toward Gibbs, who was being marched directly behind him. "Sorry," he said brusquely to his first mate.

Gibbs looked at Jack, his eyes widening in surprise. "Blimey, Jack," he answered, "have you ever apologized for anything before in your life?"

Jack blinked. There was a question to think about. "No," he said finally. "I don't think so."

"I'm honored, Captain," Gibbs said with an attempt at a smile.

Jack's own attempt was no less of a failure. He straightened before his "smile" got a chance to turn into despair, and he swallowed. For the first time in his life – that he could remember – Captain Jack Sparrow was nervous about dying. He couldn't recall any other time that fear had plagued him on the way to the noose, but it was definitely rearing its ugly head now. And with it came another head, one that Jack supposed must be the cause of his fear.

He could summon up the face of Anna Norrington quite easily.

_I _am_ a fool,_ he thought. _Why in bloody blazes could I be stupid enough to let myself – well – to let myself fall in love with his daughter, of all people? My mind must be deteriorating with old age._

And even more surprising was the thought that he would be sorry never to see her again.

Luckily, someone slapped the side of his head before he could get too lost in useless musings on his stupidity. "Look lively, Sparrow!" hissed one of the guards on either side of him. "The hangman's waiting for you. Don't make him wait too long or his temper'll get _stretched_." Both guards guffawed at the prime bit of gallows humor. Jack surprised them by showing his teeth in a sarcastic grin and climbed the steps to the scaffold.

The hangman unceremoniously dropped the noose over Jack's head and tightened it. A man across the square unrolled his sentence and began to read it aloud. _The bloody thing gets longer every time they do this,_ Jack thought with a surge of pride. He could almost forgive the man for, once again, leaving out "Captain" when the list of his crimes went on and on and on. Jack kept his mind firmly on what the man was saying. He refused to let himself think about..._her_...so that his fear wouldn't start up again. That was the last thing he needed right now.

"...And are hereby sentenced to be hung by the neck until dead!" finished the reader, rolling up Jack's sentence with intense relief that the massive job of reading Jack's crimes was done.

Here goes, Jack thought, making a last effort to squash the terror of death that flared up inside him. He kept his eyes open – to close them would be to admit to fear – and saw the hangman reach to open the trapdoor.

"Halt!" shouted a voice that Jack knew far too well. He looked up, wondering who it was that had interrupted his death, and saw a figure in naval uniform making his way through the crowd, followed by two other figures in civilian clothes. Jack blinked, and would have rubbed his eyes if his hands had been free. He wondered if he was already dead.

"Halt, I say!" shouted Commodore Norrington again. "He is not to be harmed!" He had made it through to the scaffold, and climbed quickly up to stand not too close to Jack.

"Uh – sir?" asked one of the guards. Norrington looked down in annoyance. "Are you – still in charge?" the guard asked tentatively.

"I have been found not guilty of the charges laid against me," Norrington announced in a voice that spread over the square, "and remain acting commodore in Port Royal. As such, I will not allow any of these men to be harmed." He turned to the guards and said, "Bring them here."

The guards, bewildered, herded the pirates onto the scaffold. "Now cut their hands free," Norrington ordered, and he was obeyed again. Jack slipped out of the noose and looked, not a little confused himself, at Norrington.

The commodore faced the crowd and raised his voice again. "If any of you had forgotten," he intoned, "these pirates risked their lives to help you regain this colony. It was they who blew the French powder magazine, and it was they who entered the fight at peril of life and limb. And it was they who, these services forgotten, were condemned to death by the same people they fought to liberate!"

From her place at the foot of the scaffold, Anna grinned as the force of her father's words made the citizens of Port Royal blush with shame.

"But it is those same people who will now redeem themselves," Norrington went on. "For in their name and in the name of the King, I, James Norrington, commodore of the King's navy, name Captain Jack Sparrow and his crew to be privateers sanctioned by the crown! From this hour, they are free men and law-abiding citizens of the British Empire, pardoned by the crown and free to sail the seas in service to that crown. And all of you bear witness to this action!"

* * *

Later, in the privacy of the Norrington house, the commodore explained to the pirates what had happened at the scaffold.

"A privateer," Norrington told them, "is essentially still a pirate. The difference is that privateers work with the permission of their government and are legally allowed to loot, steal, and kill, whereas pirates do the same things outside the law."

"So there's no difference really?" Jack asked.

Anna grinned and answered, "Well, you are alive, Jack – and safe as long as you don't attack any English ships. You are, after all, a law-abiding citizen of the British Empire, Captain Sparrow." Annamaria snorted irreverently, and soon the Black Pearl's crew was all laughing with her.

Anna took advantage of their distraction to tug at Jack's sleeve. "You should thank Father," she whispered. "You have no idea what he had to tell himself to be able to do this for you."

She saw comprehension dawn in Jack's eyes, and she sat back satisfied as Jack said, more seriously than she had ever heard him speak, "Thank you, commodore."

Norrington took a moment before he answered, but Anna knew he meant it when he finally said, "You're welcome."

* * *

A few evenings later, Anna came to Jack's room, her arms full of something she was sure he wasn't going to like. She managed to knock on his door, and she grinned mischievously as she saw him register what it was that she held. "Oh, no," he said flatly. "No chance, love."

"Shall I tell Elizabeth Turner that you said so?" Anna asked virtuously. "She worked so hard on these." Jack blanched, and Anna pushed past him and dumped a captain's uniform, complete with gold braid and three-cornered hat, onto his bed. "For you, Captain Sparrow. You're a sanctioned privateer now, and you should dress the part."

"What, all the time?" Jack demanded, outraged.

Anna relented. "Actually, most officers just keep their fancy uniforms hidden. They change into them when occasion demands it, but they usually wear more comfortable clothes."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "So I don't have to wear it?"

"Oh, yes, you do!" Anna scolded. "You have to try it on, so I can see if we need to make any alterations!"

It took her a good half hour to alternately bully and coax Jack into the uniform, but he finally emerged from behind a dressing screen in the full uniform. Anna smiled in spite of herself. "You look quite marvelous, Captain Sparrow," she teased. "Of course, I'm sure you look much better in your ragged, dirty, sea-stained, unwashed pirate's clothes – you just look nice in the uniform," she amended when she caught the look in Jack's eyes. "And I think we got the size perfect. You can take it off now."

He didn't, though. He cocked his head at an angle and looked at her quizzically, until Anna blushed and demanded, "What?"

"Do you prefer me like this, love?" he asked calmly.

Anna blushed again and looked at the floor. "I prefer you alive," she said quietly. "I don't really care if you're wearing a uniform or your old clothes." She looked up and asked, "Just where are we, Jack? Is there even a 'we'?"

"Blimey if I know," Jack said somewhat helplessly. "I mean, I'd rather not have met you at all than to never see you again, but I've no idea what it means besides that. If there is a 'we,' it's got to be one of the strangest 'we's' there ever was."

Anna sighed. "No," she said. "I don't want to know about 'we.' I want to know about you. What –" She swallowed the lump in her throat and went on, trying not to think about what she said. "What do you feel about me?"

He only looked at her, straight into her eyes without flinching away. "Bloody hell, Anna," Jack said at last, "I think I love you."

She smiled slightly. "I think that's what I'm feeling, too."

Jack took her hands and pulled her to him. Her arms went around him, and she nestled her face against his chest. "So there is a 'we'," she said, smiling where he couldn't see her face, and she felt him laugh quietly. "I suppose there is," he said wonderingly.

* * *

The harbor was busy that day, loading the last of the refitted ship Black Pearl's supplies. "Don't you dare be gone too long," Anna warned Jack. Her smile, however, belied the scolding tone she was attempting, and he hugged her and kissed her quickly. "If you are, I'll come after you, even if it _is_ improper," she promised.

"Seasick and all?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Anna laughed and swatted him playfully. "Oh, fine, then, don't come back!" she teased. "I swear, Captain Sparrow, I will never make a gentleman of you. And I'm glad of it."

"Captain!" called Gibbs from the deck of the Pearl. "We're about ready to leave."

"I'm coming, lieutenant!" Jack called back to him. Then he turned to Anna. "We shouldn't be gone too long," he promised, "but while we are, you stay safe, savvy?"

She grinned and kissed his cheek. "Savvy," she answered.

Jack sighed. "I'll never get used to having a send-off."

"Or to being a law-abiding Englishman?"

"That, too," he conceded.

"Good," Anna declared. "I wouldn't have you be any other way."

They shared one final quick kiss, and Jack walked up the gangplank and boarded the Black Pearl. Anna stepped back and took her father's hand. Commodore Norrington smiled down at his daughter, and looked up at Jack, pacing around the deck of his ship and giving orders. It had been surprising how fast he had taken a liking to his former nemesis.

They hauled up the anchor, and the Black Pearl sailed out of Port Royal. Anna, standing on the dock, waved goodbye to her fiancé until his ship disappeared on the horizon.

The End.


End file.
